-
This one has to do with
praying in the Spirit.
-
Steven Gibney writes,
-
"Brother Tim, I have a
question about prayer.
-
How long should I pray?
-
Should I come first in worship
or does it matter?
-
Sometimes I sense my own
need and frailty
-
that I just begin to weep
and cry out
-
for mercy and grace.
-
What is praying in the Spirit?
-
How do I know that I am?"
-
Does anybody know where he's
getting that from?
-
Praying in the Spirit?
-
It comes to us from Ephesians 6.
-
Listen,
-
"Take the helmet of salvation,
and the sword of the Spirit,
-
which is the Word of God;
-
praying at all times
in the Spirit,
-
with all prayer
and supplication."
-
So very quickly,
-
"how long should I pray?"
-
My answer I put here:
-
Your whole life.
-
I mean, think about it,
-
praying at all times in the Spirit.
-
1 Thessalonians 5:17
-
Pray without ceasing.
-
Luke 18:1
-
You ought always to pray
and not lose heart.
-
Romans 12:12
-
Be constant in prayer.
-
Our whole life needs to be
a life of prayer.
-
It's like someone said,
-
prayer to the Christian
is like breathing to the natural man.
-
You come forth into the world
-
and you begin to breathe.
-
You come forth into the
Kingdom of God,
-
and you begin to pray.
-
And the Spirit of God is
the Spirit of adoption.
-
It's the Spirit by which we
cry, "Abba, Father."
-
What are all those
"Abba, Father's?"
-
They're prayer.
-
They're crying out to God.
-
Jesus identifies in Matthew 6
-
that there are times we go
into our closet.
-
There are times we get away
-
from the commotion,
-
we get away from the crowd.
-
I was just reading Count Zinzendorf's life
-
that he would make it a point
-
to send people away,
-
and he would travel certain
parts of his journey
-
all by himself.
-
He liked to speak out loud
-
and personally to Christ.
-
And he would just walk
as with a friend
-
for miles and miles and miles.
-
Just openly conversing with Christ.
-
We need that.
-
We need times alone.
-
How long?
-
Jesus says this,
-
"When you pray, go into
your room, shut the door
-
and pray to your Father,
who is in secret,
-
and your Father who sees in
secret, will reward you."
-
He doesn't say how long
that should take,
-
but brethren, if you're really
-
trying to bear the burdens
-
of your brothers and sisters
-
in the church,
-
let alone your own burdens,
-
and you're really trying to
hold up the spread of the Gospel,
-
that's one of the things that
was prayed for;
-
Paul wanted prayer.
-
Pray for me.
-
Spread of the Gospel.
-
If you're praying
for our missionaries,
-
you're praying for the
spread of the Gospel,
-
you're praying for the evangelistic
efforts in this city;
-
you're praying, and you're
really giving yourself to pray;
-
can you do that in 30 seconds?
-
Can you do that in
a minute and a half?
-
It says you pray like that
in secret,
-
your Father who's there in secret,
-
hears in secret,
-
will reward you openly.
-
Does it mean so little to you
-
of the rewards of God
-
that you would just go into your
-
closet and pray five minutes
a week?
-
Now then he asks the question
-
about should we start in worship.
-
All I can say about that is,
-
look, there are all sorts of ways to pray.
-
I just thought of the early church praying
-
Acts 4, "They lifted up their voices
together to God..."
-
Listen to how they prayed:
-
"Sovereign Lord."
-
Now see, they're glorifying
the Lord there.
-
There's worship in that.
-
They're identifying Him: Sovereign.
-
And He's Lord.
-
Who made the heaven
and the earth.
-
They're identifying Him as
the Creator.
-
"And the sea and
everything in them.
-
Who through the mouth of
our father David
-
your servant said by the
Holy Spirit."
-
He's the one that
speaks to us.
-
"Why do the Gentiles rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
-
The kings of the earth set
themselves, rulers were
-
gathered together against the Lord,
against His anointed;
-
for truly in this city
there were gathered together
-
against your holy servant,
Jesus, whom you anointed."
-
So He's the God who anoints.
-
He's the God who predestinates.
-
"Both Herod and Pontius Pilate
along with the Gentiles
-
and people of Israel to do
-
whatever Your hand and
Your plan
-
had predestinated to take place.
-
Now, Lord, look upon
their threats,
-
and grant to Your servants
to continue to speak
-
Your Word with all boldness."
-
You know what,
when you begin to pray,
-
and you begin to identify
God the way He is,
-
in terms that are glorifying
and praiseworthy to Him,
-
it will excite you to pray better.
-
Not only is it glorifying to Him,
-
it encourages you to think
on who this God is.
-
So, I encourage it.
-
It's definitely biblical.
-
It's definitely in
that biblical prayer.
-
And just to tell you,
-
when they prayed like this,
-
"the place in which they had
gathered together was shaken,
-
and they were all filled
with the Holy Spirit,
-
and continued to speak the
Word of God with boldness."
-
Then he asked this question:
-
"What is praying in the Spirit?"
-
Well, let me tell you this,
-
I'll tell you what it is,
-
praying in the Spirit's at the
end of all this armor
-
that we need to
fight demonic powers.
-
Do you remember this?
-
We fight not against flesh
and blood, right?
-
Isn't that how this chapter starts?
-
All this warfare talk?
-
Praying in the Spirit is the
kind of prayer
-
you need to pull down
demonic strongholds.
-
It's the kind of
prayer you need
-
to go up and fight against
-
these principalities and powers
-
and wicked dominions
in high places.
-
I don't know that I can exactly
define what praying in the Spirit is,
-
but I can tell you this,
-
typically when you're
praying in the Spirit,
-
you have a sense of it.
-
Or when you're in
a prayer meeting
-
and you hear other people
pray in the Spirit,
-
you have a sense of it.
-
And I'll tell you this,
-
the kind of prayer that
brings down
-
demonic strongholds
-
is not where you just
whip out your laundry list,
-
and "Lord, heal Aunt Tilda's toe,
-
and Lord, help my neighbor
who lost their dog,
-
and Lord, help..."
-
I mean, when you just throw out
the cheap little laundry list...
-
What kind of prayer is it
that pulls down
-
demonic strongholds?
-
I'll tell you what it is.
-
It's when people begin to
recite the character of God
-
like they did there in Acts 4.
-
It's when they begin to recite
the promises of God
-
until that Spirit takes that promise
-
and lights them up on fire
-
so that they are able to lay hold
upon God
-
and have what they're asking for,
-
and not let God loose,
though He shake them
-
like that angel of the Lord
did with Jacob.
-
And they hold on till they
get what they pray for.
-
I'll tell you what,
-
you don't pray in the Spirit
when you've grieved the Spirit.
-
When you've got all sorts of
sin and wretchedness in your life.
-
And that Spirit of God,
-
He tends to energize and
He tends to be effectual
-
in God's people's lives
-
when their eyes are
set upon Christ.
-
These are things that I would say.
-
You want to pray in the Spirit?
Don't grieve the Spirit.
-
You want to pray in the Spirit?
Set your eyes on Christ.
-
You want to pray in the Spirit?
Set your eyes on the character of God.
-
You want to pray in the Spirit?
-
Set your eyes on the promises.
-
And I'll tell you this,
-
you don't pray in the Spirit
unless you pray.
-
And it's not going to be these
-
cheap little flippant things.
-
And I'm not saying it's always
got to be all dramatic,
-
some of the times, like this guy,
-
he feels frailty and feels weak
-
and all he can do is weep;
-
some of the most "in the Spirit"
prayers may be
-
where you can't even get a word out.
-
All it is is a weep or a groan
or a tear that runs down your face.
-
It doesn't have to be all dramatic
and everything.
-
But it's where men with pure hearts
-
are ascending the hill of the Lord
-
and they're laying hold on
the arm of God.
-
That's praying in the Spirit.
-
And though it may be a sigh,
it may be a groan,
-
it's pure men that pray like this.
-
Pure women.
-
Not those who defile themselves
and grieve the Spirit of God.
-
I can't exactly define all of it,
but I'll tell you what,
-
I know when in the depths
of my own soul
-
a promise of God has come
to my heart
-
where I am determined
to have it and not let go of God.
-
I've heard men pray before,
-
where I've just entered in.
-
And you know it.
-
You folks know it.
-
You've been in prayer meetings
-
and you've heard some people pray
-
and it's just kind of like
-
a drone that it doesn't feel like
-
there's been a laying hold on God.
-
It's just kind of talking
-
and it's just going on;
-
where others, they've just
been lifted up
-
and they say, "God,
You are like this."
-
And then the whole congregation
-
just kind of says, "Yes!"
-
"And Lord, we need to have this."
-
And it's like, "Yes!"
-
"Lord, we'll not be denied."
-
And you just feel there's
this swaying
-
and the Spirit is moving.
-
Where other times,
-
it's just this chatter and this drone.
-
But you guys know what
I'm saying is right.
-
You can sense it.
You can feel it.
-
There's certain times when
people pray
-
and it's like I'm lifted away;
I'm in another place,
-
I'm carried up.
-
May God give us that.
-
And we have times like that
in our prayer meetings.
-
And I'm thankful for it.
-
May God give us those kind of times
-
in our personal lives as well.
-
Well, that's it for today.
-
Any questions or comments
anybody want to make?
-
Did I kill you with time?
-
(from the room)
-
How would you exhort somebody
who feels discouragement?
-
Tim: I would say this,
-
pray through your discouragements.
-
Live through your discouragements.
-
Press on in your discouragements.
-
I'll tell you one of the
most discouraging things for me,
-
is the silence of Christ.
-
And what I mean by that
is when you pray,
-
and then there's no answer.
-
And you pray again.
-
And there's no answer.
-
And if I were to bring in
-
a real life situation,
-
I would bring in the Syrophoenician woman.
-
"Lord, my daughter's got a demon."
-
He didn't answer her.
-
She kept pressing the matter.
-
Then, when He did answer,
-
He says look, you're a Gentile dog.
-
I didn't come for the dogs,
-
I came for the children.
-
She said, "Lord, even the dogs
-
eat the crumbs that fall
off of the table."
-
She kept pressing Him;
she kept pressing Him.
-
There are times for me,
-
that's great discouragement;
-
but the silence of Christ
-
is not meant to turn us away.
-
And it's not meant to communicate to us
-
that Christ doesn't love us.
-
It's meant to stir those
longings even deeper,
-
to press the faith even further.
-
If you look at that Syropheonician woman,
-
just pressed her to become
-
more violent in her attempts to
-
get a response from the Lord.
-
And in the end,
-
she had what she came for.
-
So, in the midst of our
discouragements,
-
I would call the
Syropheonician woman...
-
Because why are we discouraged?
-
We get discouraged
because we don't have
-
certain things that we want.
-
That's really what it is.
-
Discouragement comes because
I want something
-
that the Lord is not giving me.
-
He's gone quiet on me.
-
If you think about it.
-
I mean, are you discouarged when
all the things that give you joy
-
and happiness and pleasure
are all being heaped upon you?
-
Typically not.
-
Typically, we're discouraged when
we feel something's lacking.
-
We either feel His face is withdrawn,
-
we feel there's something
we feel so pressed
-
to have from Him;
-
and He's gone silent.
-
(from the room)
-
I heard an analogy once that
prayer is like digging
-
for buried treasure.
-
And that some people around you
are going to hit that treasure
-
before you do, but that
doesn't make you stop digging.
-
It's still down there.
-
Tim: And Spurgeon's likened it to
-
shaking a fruit tree
-
trying to get the
fruit to fall off.
-
And that a lot of people
quit beating on the tree
-
one stroke before... if they
would have hit it one more time,
-
it would have fallen.
-
And it's true,
-
we have not, because we ask not.
-
And those that press through,
are the ones that receive
-
what they ask for.
-
Do you know George Mueller
-
prayed fifty-some years for
-
one of his brothers
-
every single day that
God would save him,
-
and God finally did save him?
-
God saved some of his
family members
-
who he prayed for every
day of his life after he died.
-
He didn't even get to see it
in this life.