WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.519 We are in a brief two-week series on spiritual renewal for 2018. God's program 00:00:10.519 --> 00:00:16.519 for spiritual renewal for us, for the church, is called the spiritual 00:00:16.519 --> 00:00:22.719 disciplines. And spiritual disciplines, they're the ordinary way God has given us 00:00:22.719 --> 00:00:27.600 to change. They're the ordinary path that God has shown us in the New Testament 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:33.399 to find joy, to know Him, to change in life. And Donald Whitney, who's kind of 00:00:33.399 --> 00:00:38.439 the grandfather of thinking about spiritual disciplines today, defines them 00:00:38.439 --> 00:00:45.079 as the habits and the rhythms of our devotion to God. Now he says they are not 00:00:45.079 --> 00:00:52.560 attitudes, but they're practices. They're attitude-shaping practices, the spiritual 00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:58.840 disciplines. And the idea for this comes straight out of 1st Timothy 4-7. Paul says, 00:00:58.840 --> 00:01:04.640 discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. And so we practice the 00:01:04.640 --> 00:01:09.280 spiritual disciplines as the ordinary way to grow in the Christian life. 00:01:09.280 --> 00:01:13.640 Typically the church has identified six or seven different spiritual 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:23.159 disciplines. So read, scripture, meditate on scripture, pray, learn, study, serve, or 00:01:23.159 --> 00:01:30.319 show mercy, fast, and worship, corporate worship together. So those are the seven 00:01:30.319 --> 00:01:34.000 spiritual disciplines that the church has recognized for two millennia that come 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:38.680 right out of the Bible. And last week Derek preached on reading and 00:01:38.680 --> 00:01:45.880 meditating on scripture. And I wanted to do that one. I asked for it, but he put 00:01:45.880 --> 00:01:53.080 himself in it instead and left today. Because, you know, because prayer is way 00:01:53.080 --> 00:01:58.719 harder than reading scripture. I think it's the toughest of all the spiritual 00:01:58.719 --> 00:02:03.000 disciplines. P.T. Forsythe, one of the great Scottish theologians of the last 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:08.840 century, he died in 1921. He said it like this, it's a difficult and even 00:02:08.840 --> 00:02:16.759 formidable thing to preach on prayer. One fears to touch the Ark. But perhaps the 00:02:16.759 --> 00:02:21.560 effort may be graciously regarded by the Holy Spirit, whoever and even now lives 00:02:21.560 --> 00:02:26.520 to make intercession for us. And hopefully that will be true for us today. 00:02:26.520 --> 00:02:32.120 Martin Louis Jones, the preacher of the 20th century in London, just a decade 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:38.240 before his death in 1971, he said, I've never written on prayer because of the 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:45.280 inadequacy I've always found in my own prayer life. I know how he feels. Maybe 00:02:45.280 --> 00:02:50.800 you do too today. And so we're here this morning in this little series to revive 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:57.759 our prayer life. Things that need to be revived have to be revived because they 00:02:57.759 --> 00:03:00.879 were once revived but are no longer revived. And so we need to revive our 00:03:00.879 --> 00:03:06.759 prayer lives, some of us today, and strengthen them. So we're just gonna look 00:03:06.759 --> 00:03:11.199 at two moments here in the greatest chapter, Paul's greatest chapter, Romans 00:03:11.199 --> 00:03:17.639 8, to learn from Paul three things, the basis of prayer, the problem with prayer, 00:03:17.639 --> 00:03:26.719 and some lessons for prayer or own prayer. So first, the basis of prayer, verse 15. 00:03:26.719 --> 00:03:31.800 Verse 15, he says this, you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall 00:03:31.800 --> 00:03:37.159 back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons or as sons 00:03:37.159 --> 00:03:43.159 and daughters. The word means both. Paul here is contrasting two 00:03:43.159 --> 00:03:51.919 spirits, the spirit of slavery and the spirit of adoption. He's talking here 00:03:51.919 --> 00:03:58.000 about your inner life, about who you truly are at your deepest, about your 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:04.159 heart, and how who you truly are, your inner life, your heart relates to God. And 00:04:04.159 --> 00:04:08.159 he's saying you can have one of two spirits. You can either have the spirit, 00:04:08.159 --> 00:04:15.839 the heart, of slavery or the heart of adoption, of being a son or daughter. One 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:23.560 produces fear, the other produces freedom. And he goes on, did you see it, to 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:28.759 clarify, what is he talking about? And this is what he says, you have 00:04:28.759 --> 00:04:33.840 received the spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by whom we cry, Abba Father. 00:04:33.840 --> 00:04:41.399 And what that means is that Paul is talking about prayer here. You've 00:04:41.399 --> 00:04:46.239 received one of two, you have one of two spirits, and if you have the spirit of adoption, from 00:04:46.239 --> 00:04:50.759 that spirit, that's the ground, the basis from which you can cry out to God, 00:04:50.759 --> 00:04:58.679 Abba Father. He's talking about prayer, crying out, crying up before God. He's 00:04:58.679 --> 00:05:03.839 saying that if you have the Holy Spirit of adoption, the spirit 00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:08.159 that gives you the spirit of adoption, you can, you have a basis to cry out 00:05:08.160 --> 00:05:15.400 before God, Abba Father. Now the first thing to say about this is that Paul is 00:05:15.400 --> 00:05:19.800 assuming here something that the whole New Testament assumes and that he says 00:05:19.800 --> 00:05:24.440 very clearly in Romans 1 and that Jesus also says in the Sermon on the Mount in 00:05:24.440 --> 00:05:29.800 Matthew chapter 6, and that's that everybody prays. That's that everybody in 00:05:29.800 --> 00:05:36.680 the whole world prays. Prayer is global, it's universal, it's always been at all 00:05:36.680 --> 00:05:40.959 times and all places. There's never been a society, a people group, a religion, 00:05:40.959 --> 00:05:45.800 nothing ever in history that hasn't been grounded in some sort of 00:05:45.800 --> 00:05:50.319 prayer. People have always prayed, and that's not to say that every single 00:05:50.319 --> 00:05:58.720 individual today prays. But in a BBC survey, in the last decade, they went and 00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:04.160 interviewed most of the, a segment of the people who mark not the nuns, the people 00:06:04.160 --> 00:06:09.160 who say I'm not religious, I'm either atheist or agnostic on a survey or a 00:06:09.160 --> 00:06:15.800 census, and even among those almost 40% of those people said sometimes they pray 00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:21.320 too, they try it, sometimes they even make an attempt and talk to, as you see in 00:06:21.320 --> 00:06:25.080 the movie, something like the guy upstairs or however they might frame it. 00:06:25.080 --> 00:06:31.640 An Italian scholar recently, a famous sociologist in the Academy named Giordon, 00:06:31.639 --> 00:06:38.639 he says this, in virtually all studies of the sociology of religious behavior, it 00:06:38.639 --> 00:06:42.759 is clearly apparent that a very high percentage of people in the world declare 00:06:42.759 --> 00:06:48.639 that they continue to pray every day, and many even say that they pray many times 00:06:48.639 --> 00:06:56.079 a day. But there are different reasons for prayer, there are different grounds of 00:06:56.079 --> 00:06:59.319 prayer, there are different bases for prayer, there are different ways of praying. 00:06:59.319 --> 00:07:05.560 The Muslim goes to mosque, the Buddhist goes to the prayer wheel and spends the 00:07:05.560 --> 00:07:09.879 prayer wheel, the Hindu goes to a different temple depending on the God 00:07:09.879 --> 00:07:13.879 that they want to pray to at any given time, and all of these types of religious 00:07:13.879 --> 00:07:22.399 actions in prayer have different goals to salvation, praying for rain to come 00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:27.639 down on the crops, praying to escape cycles of reincarnation, all different 00:07:27.639 --> 00:07:32.519 types of reasons and goals and grounds and ways and forms of prayer. 00:07:32.519 --> 00:07:36.039 And Paul is saying he's assuming here, as Jesus did in the Sermon on the Mount, 00:07:36.039 --> 00:07:42.079 that everybody prays, but not all prayers are equal, not all prayers are the same, 00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:46.519 and what he's speaking of here, what he's assuming here is that there's a 00:07:46.519 --> 00:07:52.439 distinct ground, a distinct basis of what it means to have Christian prayer, that 00:07:52.439 --> 00:07:58.399 Christian prayer is distinct according to Jesus' categorization. 00:07:58.399 --> 00:08:03.120 Christian prayer, pray then like this, our Father is distinct from all other types 00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:06.920 of prayer in the whole world, and that's what Paul is talking about here. 00:08:06.920 --> 00:08:11.199 There's a distinct idea of Christian prayer, and so the question he is 00:08:11.199 --> 00:08:19.959 answering here is on what basis do you pray? On what basis, on what grounds do 00:08:19.959 --> 00:08:25.959 you pray? And I think that he has in his mind in the background, I think 00:08:25.959 --> 00:08:31.439 he's thinking of Jesus in Matthew chapter 6, I think he's thinking of 00:08:31.439 --> 00:08:36.960 Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus comes 00:08:36.960 --> 00:08:44.639 and says, pray to his disciples, pray then like this, our Father who art in 00:08:44.639 --> 00:08:49.000 heaven, and you know the rest of the prayer, but you remember that that passage 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:54.279 has a context, and the context is that when he says pray like this, he's saying, 00:08:54.279 --> 00:08:59.200 because I've just told you don't pray like that, and before that prayer he had 00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:05.279 introduced two ways not to pray, and he said first, don't pray like the 00:09:05.279 --> 00:09:10.720 hypocrites who go out into the streets and pray eloquent prayers, he called 00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:14.759 what they do hypocrisy, and what he meant by that is that their inner life, 00:09:14.759 --> 00:09:20.360 their spirit is actually not a spirit of adoption but a spirit of slavery, in 00:09:20.360 --> 00:09:25.679 other words they have a public prayer life but they have no private prayer 00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:30.559 life, and that's the definition of a hypocrisy, to have a public prayer life, 00:09:30.559 --> 00:09:36.439 a public religion with no private devotion, that's the spirit of slavery 00:09:36.439 --> 00:09:42.279 because it's based on a slave's performance, the performance in the 00:09:42.279 --> 00:09:46.879 hypocrites case before other human beings that need to be seen and known as 00:09:46.879 --> 00:09:50.879 a person who's religious, as a person who prays but actually has no true 00:09:50.879 --> 00:09:54.879 inner spirit of prayer, and then the second way that Jesus says not to pray is 00:09:54.879 --> 00:10:00.559 not only not like the hypocrite but he also says don't pray like the pagan, now 00:10:00.559 --> 00:10:07.240 the pagan that's kind of a dirty word today, all he means there is any other 00:10:07.240 --> 00:10:13.320 religion out there, pagan religion is just any other religion besides the one 00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:18.600 he's referring to there, the Christian religion, and he's saying how does, so 00:10:18.600 --> 00:10:23.039 how does the pagan pray, and you'll remember from Matthew chapter 6, he says 00:10:23.039 --> 00:10:30.759 that the pagan babbles before his gods, and the word babble there simply means 00:10:30.759 --> 00:10:36.960 literally in Greek, empty and anxious words, so the hypocrite goes out into 00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:40.759 the square and he prays in order to be seen and that's performative, it's 00:10:40.759 --> 00:10:45.320 performance, it's the spirit of slavery, the need to perform for other people, but 00:10:45.320 --> 00:10:49.200 the pagan goes into the temple he's saying and babbles empty and anxious words 00:10:49.200 --> 00:10:54.120 also on the ground of slavery on the need as Paul categorizes it, the need to 00:10:54.120 --> 00:10:58.320 perform, in other words empty and anxious words because their gods are 00:10:58.320 --> 00:11:03.440 capricious, they have no stable foundation to come before their gods 00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:07.720 and know that they're being heard and so what they're forced to do is to repeat 00:11:07.720 --> 00:11:13.160 empty, vain, repetitious, anxious words, words as Paul calls it in Romans 8, words 00:11:13.160 --> 00:11:18.240 of fear, right, and in both instances, both categorizations that Jesus gives 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:23.520 just like Paul gives here in Romans 8, a spirit of slavery in prayer is 00:11:23.520 --> 00:11:29.720 performance, birthed out of fear, it's the spirit of performance, it's the need to 00:11:29.720 --> 00:11:34.560 perform, it's the need to come before a god, a deity and exchange, have an 00:11:34.560 --> 00:11:38.660 exchange relationship to say I'll do this for you if you'll hear me, if you'll 00:11:38.660 --> 00:11:42.680 bless me, if you'll give me this, this, this and this, but the only way that that 00:11:42.680 --> 00:11:46.080 god is going to hear you, Paul is saying and Jesus was talking about in the 00:11:46.080 --> 00:11:50.200 Sermon on the Mount, is if you perform, if you do a dance, if you do a jig, if you 00:11:50.200 --> 00:11:54.920 get it all right, if you come to the temple at the right time, right, that's 00:11:54.919 --> 00:12:03.719 the spirit of slavery, it produces fear, how do you define Christian prayer? How 00:12:03.719 --> 00:12:12.519 do you know if it's real and it's true? And what Paul says is this, it's when the 00:12:12.519 --> 00:12:19.959 spirit of Christ testifies with your spirit, your heart, your inner life, that 00:12:19.960 --> 00:12:26.320 you pray not out of the fear of a faraway deity, but on the ground of a 00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:32.400 family relationship to a father. The basis of Christian prayer, he says, is 00:12:32.400 --> 00:12:39.639 adoption, it's being adopted, it's being a son or a daughter and having a 00:12:39.639 --> 00:12:45.920 father. Tim Keller, he helpfully illustrates the difference in these two 00:12:45.919 --> 00:12:53.120 grounds, bases for prayer, by talking about the types of relationships that we 00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:59.079 all have in our daily life in the modern 21st century world. All of us, the 00:12:59.079 --> 00:13:03.639 well the the capitalistic situation that we exist in is helpful for making this 00:13:03.639 --> 00:13:08.240 clear. All of us leave our house every day if you do and most of the 00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:13.039 relationships that you experience on a day-to-day basis are retail relationships, 00:13:13.039 --> 00:13:18.079 they're exchange relationships, business-like relationships, right? So anytime 00:13:18.079 --> 00:13:23.639 you go before the sales clerk at Boots or Morrison's or wherever you go, you have 00:13:23.639 --> 00:13:27.199 entered into a type of relationship there and that's a retail exchange 00:13:27.199 --> 00:13:31.360 relationship and how does a retail exchange relationship work? Well, you 00:13:31.360 --> 00:13:37.879 provide something that is worth the amount that the item cost, money in that 00:13:37.879 --> 00:13:41.919 instance, and they give you the goods, right? It's performative. But there are 00:13:41.919 --> 00:13:45.799 all sorts of other relationships in your life that are more meaningful than a 00:13:45.799 --> 00:13:51.279 retail relationship, right? And that exists on a spectrum and you can think of 00:13:51.279 --> 00:13:56.799 the relationship you've had with the best teacher that you ever had in your 00:13:56.799 --> 00:14:02.039 life, a type of deep mentorship or something. That was meaningful but even 00:14:02.039 --> 00:14:06.000 more maybe a boyfriend and a girlfriend, even more a really good lifelong 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:10.480 friendship, but even more. What is the deepest relationship? What is the 00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:16.539 ground of the most strong, long-lasting, deepest, most meaningful 00:14:16.539 --> 00:14:22.560 relationship in the human life? And it's, of course, it's family. It's being the 00:14:22.560 --> 00:14:26.639 blood of your, it's being the blood of my blood. It's sharing blood with 00:14:26.639 --> 00:14:33.159 somebody. It's family, right? In non-Christian prayer, non-Christian prayer 00:14:33.159 --> 00:14:39.279 deals with a God who only responds based on retail exchange relationship, 00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:47.399 performative relationship, sacrifices, pleadings, incense, empty and anxious 00:14:47.399 --> 00:14:51.000 babble, hoping behind hope that if you got the dough, if you bring what you need, 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:56.240 you'll get the blessing. And Paul and Jesus and Matthew 6 are saying Christian 00:14:56.240 --> 00:14:59.879 prayer is different. It's based on family relationship. It's based, it's not based 00:14:59.879 --> 00:15:05.000 on performance, it's based on your status. It's based on status, on how you 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:12.639 stand, who you are before God. I mean scholars, theologians have said that when 00:15:12.639 --> 00:15:18.600 Jesus says, pray them like this, our Father, that at that moment there was a 00:15:18.600 --> 00:15:25.440 revolution in the history of prayer. That never before, never before in the 00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:31.039 history of prayer had someone been told, go to your Father, go to your 00:15:31.039 --> 00:15:36.599 Father. It was a revolution in the ground of your prayer life being childlike 00:15:36.599 --> 00:15:41.719 dependency. It's totally new in the history of the world. Now did you think, 00:15:41.719 --> 00:15:50.000 did you think the possibility of God listening to you was based on your 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:59.480 performance? And that's a pagan idea is what he's saying. That's a pagan 00:15:59.480 --> 00:16:06.279 concept. Now just think about it. Just think about adoption, what it means to 00:16:06.279 --> 00:16:12.120 be an adopted son or daughter. When somebody gets adopted, when a child gets 00:16:12.120 --> 00:16:20.240 adopted, who is it that does the work of adoption? When a child gets adopted, of 00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:26.039 course it's the parent that does the work of adoption. The parent goes, the 00:16:26.039 --> 00:16:31.679 father, the mother goes and signs on the dotted line, signs the paperwork and 00:16:31.679 --> 00:16:35.879 immediately as soon as the parent chooses and signs the paperwork, what 00:16:35.879 --> 00:16:42.000 happens to that child? Their status changes. Immediately they were once a 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:46.079 stranger but now they're a son. Immediately in that moment by divine 00:16:46.079 --> 00:16:50.559 fiat, just like that, it's the parents, it's the performance of the parent of 00:16:50.559 --> 00:16:54.759 the father or the mother in an adoption that makes the child into a son or 00:16:54.759 --> 00:16:59.000 daughter. It's the parents' performance that changes their status and that's 00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:02.240 exactly what Paul, it's a metaphor of adoption. That's exactly what 00:17:02.240 --> 00:17:06.480 happens to you. That's the ground, the basis from which you can go pray. Now 00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:14.319 look, if you're a parent today and even if you're not, you know this too, 00:17:14.319 --> 00:17:19.240 but if you're a parent especially, you know the love that stands behind this 00:17:19.240 --> 00:17:28.680 reality with God. You know the love that stands behind this ground from 00:17:28.680 --> 00:17:35.839 which you can come to your father and sit on his lap. If my oldest son, 00:17:35.839 --> 00:17:42.480 Ethan, presently four, but if someday he grows up a little bit, we're close to 00:17:42.480 --> 00:17:49.440 this already maybe, but if he becomes the worst guy on the block, the bully, the 00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:57.559 rebel, the prodigal, the restless and he takes all my money and he goes and he 00:17:57.559 --> 00:18:03.599 becomes the spin-thrift and he ruins himself and he ruins our family and he 00:18:03.599 --> 00:18:09.880 becomes a criminal even. But then I see him on the horizon coming back towards 00:18:09.880 --> 00:18:15.640 me, coming to speak with me, coming to talk to me. What do I do? I put on my 00:18:15.640 --> 00:18:19.680 shoes and I get dressed and I run to him, right? And I greet him and I pick him up 00:18:19.680 --> 00:18:25.080 and I hug him and I bring him back to my house and I throw a feast, right? And is 00:18:25.080 --> 00:18:31.040 there discipline? Sure. Is there a consequence for what he's done? Of course. 00:18:31.040 --> 00:18:35.000 Any loving parent would give discipline and consequence for that, for something 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:40.920 like that. But I'm not gonna cast him away. If he wants to come and speak to me, 00:18:40.920 --> 00:18:45.400 I'm gonna be there, right? But why? Because he's blood of my blood. He's flesh 00:18:45.400 --> 00:18:50.799 of my flesh. He's my son or she's my daughter, right? That they can always come 00:18:50.799 --> 00:18:55.319 back to me. This is what Paul is saying. This is the ground. No matter what you've 00:18:55.319 --> 00:18:59.359 done, no matter how bad your prayer life was in 2017, no matter how stale it was, 00:18:59.359 --> 00:19:05.119 the ground of Christian prayer is that a father sees you on the horizon and he 00:19:05.119 --> 00:19:10.119 runs out to you no matter what you've done, even as a Christian, no matter how 00:19:10.119 --> 00:19:16.919 little you've prayed to him. He's a father, a father. Now just to close 00:19:16.919 --> 00:19:20.119 out this point, this is the long point by the way in the next two are very short, 00:19:20.119 --> 00:19:28.399 I promise. Let me just say, is your prayer life stale? Do you talk with your 00:19:28.400 --> 00:19:39.519 father or do you talk at a distant God? Commentators say about this verse 15 and 00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:46.000 16 that there's something strange. Paul puts side by side two different 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:50.560 languages here when he says, by the spirit of adoption, if your son or a 00:19:50.559 --> 00:19:58.720 daughter in Christ, you can cry out, Abba, father. Now Abba is an Aramaic word and 00:19:58.720 --> 00:20:05.639 father, pater, is a Greek word. So literally if you translated the Aramaic, 00:20:05.639 --> 00:20:08.960 like they translate the Greek here, it would just say you cry out, father, father, 00:20:08.960 --> 00:20:15.879 or dad, dad, or whatever. Now why does he put these two words side by side? Well, 00:20:15.880 --> 00:20:21.760 it's at least for this reason. In the first century, Abba is a normal term, 00:20:21.760 --> 00:20:27.760 the everyday term for speaking to one's father. They often spoke Aramaic in the 00:20:27.760 --> 00:20:32.080 first century as well as Hebrew and Greek and Abba would have been the term 00:20:32.080 --> 00:20:36.960 that Jesus would have used to talk to his earthly dad, Joseph. Abba was 00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:41.480 the regular term that I've just come home from work or from school kind of a 00:20:41.480 --> 00:20:46.880 term that you refer to your dad. Israelites, Jews in the first century, 00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:53.360 would not use this term to talk to God. It was forbidden. You cannot say this to 00:20:53.360 --> 00:21:00.799 God. It's too homely, it's too colloquial, it's too easy, if you will, but 00:21:00.799 --> 00:21:05.519 how did this come? Why does Paul say this? It's because Jesus introduced this in 00:21:05.519 --> 00:21:10.880 the Gospels for the first time in history. If you go back and look at how 00:21:10.880 --> 00:21:16.040 Jesus prays in the Gospels, he goes and he says, Abba, a father, he prays all 00:21:16.040 --> 00:21:20.920 over the Gospels using the colloquial, the homely term Abba, even in the Garden 00:21:20.920 --> 00:21:28.600 of Gethsemane. Before he's about to go to the cross, he looks up and he says, Abba, 00:21:28.600 --> 00:21:36.360 let this cup of death pass from me and his father says no. And John Stott says 00:21:36.359 --> 00:21:41.759 this, Abba was an everyday word, a homely family word. No Jew would have dared to 00:21:41.759 --> 00:21:46.879 address God in this manner, but Jesus did it always in all his prayers which are 00:21:46.879 --> 00:21:55.799 handed down to us, but with one single exception. Jesus always prayed like this 00:21:55.799 --> 00:22:03.519 to his father, Abba, dad, father, except for once. And when he was hanging on the 00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:11.759 cross being murdered, he did not say, the one time he did not say Abba, he said 00:22:11.759 --> 00:22:19.759 the generic, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He lost his father when he 00:22:19.759 --> 00:22:24.559 was on the cross, you see, so that you could get adopted by the ultimate father 00:22:24.559 --> 00:22:31.359 and you could look up to heaven and say Abba. That's Christian prayer. That's 00:22:31.359 --> 00:22:36.199 Christian prayer. You can call God the same thing that Jesus does. That's 00:22:36.199 --> 00:22:40.159 Christian prayer and you can have this status by faith. Now very briefly, the 00:22:40.159 --> 00:22:46.839 last two points, just a few minutes each, the problem of prayer. Even when you know 00:22:46.839 --> 00:22:50.240 what prayer is, what Christian prayer is, even if you have the firm basis, when 00:22:50.240 --> 00:22:56.559 you come to God as Father, let's be honest, prayer is so hard. Prayer is so 00:22:56.559 --> 00:23:04.799 hard. It is so hard to maintain a consistent prayer life, right? Yeah. 826, 00:23:04.799 --> 00:23:10.079 just look down at 826. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we 00:23:10.079 --> 00:23:15.319 do not know what to pray for as we all, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us. 00:23:15.319 --> 00:23:25.480 Now here's the beauty of this passage. This is Paul. This is Paul saying, I'm 00:23:25.480 --> 00:23:29.400 weak at prayer. You see, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. He's talking about 00:23:29.400 --> 00:23:34.319 Himself too. You see, this is Paul and I'm pretty confident that Paul prayed 00:23:34.319 --> 00:23:40.440 more than you, I think. I know he prayed more than me. This is Paul, the 00:23:40.440 --> 00:23:44.680 great apostle, and he had a strong prayer life. There's no doubt about it, but he's 00:23:44.680 --> 00:23:51.559 saying there's a weakness. And what does he mean exactly? Well, I think that when 00:23:51.559 --> 00:23:55.279 he says there's a weakness in our prayer, for we do not know what to pray for as 00:23:55.279 --> 00:24:00.279 we all, he's giving you an example of one of our weaknesses. We have a weakness in 00:24:00.279 --> 00:24:04.240 prayer. The first one is we don't know what to pray for as we all. We might 00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:08.559 call that the problem, the weakness of knowledge, meaning we don't know what to 00:24:08.559 --> 00:24:11.799 pray for as we all, because we don't know what we need all the time. And you know, 00:24:11.799 --> 00:24:15.799 Paul experienced this in his own life three times. He prayed, God removed the 00:24:15.799 --> 00:24:20.960 thorn from my flesh, and each time God said, no. He didn't know what to pray for 00:24:20.960 --> 00:24:27.360 all the time. But John Knox, our reformed, reformed 00:24:27.360 --> 00:24:33.640 father, he says it this way, our needs go far beyond the power of our speech to 00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:40.360 express them. Our needs go far beyond the power of our speech to express them. But 00:24:40.360 --> 00:24:44.840 I think he's thinking here that there's more weaknesses than just the problem of 00:24:44.840 --> 00:24:50.360 knowledge of what to pray for. There's the weakness of emotion. And all, I think, I 00:24:50.359 --> 00:24:56.839 think, all of you know, the weakness of emotion. I say them, but I don't feel them. 00:24:56.839 --> 00:25:03.919 Right? And then as soon as I say them, I start looking at the dust on the ground 00:25:03.919 --> 00:25:09.679 and the dirt on my shoe and the car that's passing by outside and the curtains 00:25:09.679 --> 00:25:14.519 or whatever it is and my mind wanders away. Or when I come to prayer meeting and 00:25:14.519 --> 00:25:18.959 we circle up in a group and where it's time to pray, I think the whole time 00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:22.880 about what I'm gonna pray and miss entirely the prayers that everybody else 00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:29.400 prays. Can we say it? Can we be honest there? That that happens to us. That's 00:25:29.400 --> 00:25:33.240 our weakness, that's the weakness of knowledge, weakness of emotion. That's 00:25:33.240 --> 00:25:39.559 not a relationship with a father. That's the spirit of slavery trying to 00:25:39.559 --> 00:25:45.279 perform. Or the weakness of desire is another one. I know at least it's true of 00:25:45.279 --> 00:25:50.240 me. I say them, but I don't really want to. I don't really have desire for prayer 00:25:50.240 --> 00:25:59.799 sometimes. I feel forced. I feel a duty, not a delight. Flannery O'Connor, one of 00:25:59.799 --> 00:26:05.639 the great Southern fiction writers from Savannah, Georgia. She was a devout Roman 00:26:05.639 --> 00:26:12.240 Catholic, a very spiritual woman. And she laments in her journal once that she 00:26:12.240 --> 00:26:18.680 quote was exasperated by her prayer life. And she said simply, is there anyone out 00:26:18.680 --> 00:26:29.279 there that can teach me how to pray? And prayer is hard. And Paul said so too. And 00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:34.480 admitting it is critical. Admitting it like Paul did here. It's biblical even. 00:26:34.480 --> 00:26:40.400 You see, it's encouraging. It's helpful. One of the pitfalls in our weakness and 00:26:40.400 --> 00:26:44.480 prayer is that if we can't come up against it and know that it's a 00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:48.480 reality and fight against it in a minute and even talk about it, then we might 00:26:48.480 --> 00:26:57.519 fall into the sin, the sin, the grievous sin of prayerlessness. One pastor says 00:26:57.519 --> 00:27:03.640 this, the failure to pray is not merely to break religious rules. It's the failure 00:27:03.640 --> 00:27:10.280 to treat God as God. And it's a sin against his glory. So thirdly and finally 00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:15.720 very briefly, I'm just going to rattle off five lessons of prayer and no more 00:27:15.720 --> 00:27:22.079 than a few sentences on these each. That we can get straight from what Paul 00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:28.000 said here or discern by good and necessary consequence for our confession 00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:35.359 fans. First, we may need to start, some of us may need to begin today by 00:27:35.359 --> 00:27:43.439 repenting of prayerlessness. Prayerlessness is being self-oriented. It's living in 00:27:43.439 --> 00:27:47.919 your world, not living in God's world. And so the first thing that some of us may 00:27:47.919 --> 00:27:57.240 need to begin today by repenting of prayerlessness. Secondly, we need to 00:27:57.240 --> 00:28:02.379 emphasize the spiritual discipline, the word discipline in spiritual 00:28:02.380 --> 00:28:08.680 disciplines. And that's that just practically pray, prayer morning and 00:28:08.680 --> 00:28:13.640 evening is critical. Praying morning and evening has been the recommended 00:28:13.640 --> 00:28:17.640 practice of the church for two millennia. Every great theologian, church 00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:22.160 father and church mother, all the great saints of the past have continually 00:28:22.160 --> 00:28:26.920 written over and over again that morning and evening prayer is critical. It's 00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:31.720 where change, how change truly happens, the habits of devotion and that in that 00:28:31.720 --> 00:28:37.400 prayer we have to adopt a spirit that prays with expectation. Coming to prayer 00:28:37.400 --> 00:28:42.400 thinking that this is real, this works. I expect things to happen, I 00:28:42.400 --> 00:28:47.519 expect to change. Pray morning and evening with expectation. Secondly, that's 00:28:47.519 --> 00:28:55.880 two, three of five. Paul tells us here that we have to fight, to cry, to cry, 00:28:55.880 --> 00:29:03.440 abba father. In other words, we have to return to prayer as an experience of 00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:11.720 communion with a living God. Prayer is not talking at a deity, but it's an 00:29:11.720 --> 00:29:16.560 experience of communion with your father God. It's a real relationship. Now the 00:29:16.560 --> 00:29:23.360 Roman Catholic tradition has on the far, on the one hand, really over 00:29:23.359 --> 00:29:28.399 emphasized at times in its history mystical experiences in prayer, which we 00:29:28.399 --> 00:29:33.079 call mysticism, which can mean all sorts of things, but it's over emphasizing 00:29:33.079 --> 00:29:38.359 experience in prayer to the neglect of petition and kingdom centered type 00:29:38.359 --> 00:29:42.479 prayer, thy kingdom come that will be done. But on the other hand, the Protestant 00:29:42.479 --> 00:29:46.240 tradition, our tradition, we often over emphasize kingdom centered petitionary 00:29:46.240 --> 00:29:50.359 prayers, listing our petitions over actually coming to prayer as 00:29:50.359 --> 00:29:58.919 deep communion with God. And what Paul says here is the word cry. He said 00:29:58.919 --> 00:30:04.319 cry, abba father. It's a deeply emotional word in Greek. It's using the 00:30:04.319 --> 00:30:09.159 whole self. It's coming to commune with a real living person. It's a real 00:30:09.159 --> 00:30:15.359 relationship. This is what John Stott says. Some commentators rightly say that 00:30:15.359 --> 00:30:20.759 the verb cry, Cropso is often used in such a strong way that it expresses a 00:30:20.759 --> 00:30:27.039 loud, spontaneous, emotional cry before God. But in this case, I think it's also 00:30:27.039 --> 00:30:31.359 the case that Paul finds the particular verb here cry, not merely an 00:30:31.359 --> 00:30:38.559 enthusiasm or ecstasy, but in childlike and joyous assurance as contrasted with 00:30:38.559 --> 00:30:44.039 the attitude of the slave. It's at least coming in childlike joyous assurance 00:30:44.039 --> 00:30:50.799 of a real communing relationship when you enter into that conversation. I had a 00:30:50.799 --> 00:30:55.720 great C.S. Lewis illustration from his science fiction trilogy here, but we have 00:30:55.720 --> 00:31:00.559 to skip it for time. That's what you're tragic because it's, if you haven't read 00:31:00.559 --> 00:31:09.960 that trilogy, amazing. Four of five, very briefly. We have to recognize the spirit. 00:31:09.960 --> 00:31:17.279 Paul says here, when we are weak, the spirit helps us and intercedes for us. 00:31:17.279 --> 00:31:22.400 Strengthen your prayer life by being conscious, conscious of the spirit's 00:31:22.400 --> 00:31:28.720 work in your prayer as you pray. John Stott, again, in prayers to the Father, we 00:31:28.720 --> 00:31:32.519 experience the inward witness of the Holy Spirit. When we cry, Abba, Father, 00:31:32.519 --> 00:31:37.799 taking on our lips the words what Jesus used, it is the Spirit himself that is 00:31:37.799 --> 00:31:42.559 bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. What does this mean? 00:31:42.559 --> 00:31:48.039 Very simply, why you pray the Spirit who knows you better than you know yourself 00:31:48.039 --> 00:31:54.359 prays your heart with you. As you pray, this is a fact, this is a fact, catalog 00:31:54.359 --> 00:32:01.839 this fact. As you pray, the Holy Spirit of God prays your heart for you in a way 00:32:01.839 --> 00:32:06.240 that is more meaningful and powerful than your prayers. And you've got to be 00:32:06.240 --> 00:32:10.400 conscious of it in your weakness. Alright, fifthly and finally, and we'll 00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:18.400 close, it's a question, how much have you changed in your Christian life over the 00:32:18.400 --> 00:32:25.480 years, over the weeks, over the days, maybe? Have you seen virtue spring up, love, joy, 00:32:25.480 --> 00:32:32.339 peace, patience, kindness? Truly changed, true change. Are you different? And the 00:32:32.339 --> 00:32:36.200 question is, depending on how much you've changed is what is your prayer life 00:32:36.200 --> 00:32:43.319 like? But St. Augustine, he said the primary way we change, that our loves, our 00:32:43.319 --> 00:32:53.640 desires get reshaped and reordered, is through real deep consistent prayer. If 00:32:53.640 --> 00:33:01.840 he says, and I'll just close with this, if you love your success more than God, it 00:33:01.839 --> 00:33:08.159 will make a heart heart. But if you love God more than your successes in life, 00:33:08.159 --> 00:33:12.279 which has only brought about through a change in your inner heart through 00:33:12.279 --> 00:33:21.679 prayer, no circumstance can crush you. You will be fruitful in all seasons. We'll 00:33:21.679 --> 00:33:26.559 close with Paul, Galatians 4-9. Prayer is not just sharing your requests and 00:33:26.559 --> 00:33:35.399 ideas. And this is actually Paul. It is knowing God and being truly known in a 00:33:35.399 --> 00:33:40.480 way that no other body else can know you. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the 00:33:40.480 --> 00:33:46.440 gift of prayer. It is so hard. We need help. Change us, Lord, by your spirit who 00:33:46.440 --> 00:34:01.600 intercedes now. In Jesus' name, amen.