Introduction
Prayer can so often be difficult to do. We all know that we should pray. But sometimes the way we act is not the way we ought to act. So many things get in the way of praying: pressures at work, pressures at home, demands of family and friends, distractions like TV and social media. Sometimes we really just don’t feel like praying. This is because prayer is not a natural thing for sinners to engage in. We would, as sinners, prefer to go our own way and do our own thing without reference to God. So prayer can often be hard. Even this week while I have been preparing this sermon on prayer I have had some challenges which have made it harder to pray. I have pinched a nerve in my neck, which caused a lot of pain in my arm and this prevented me from doing things and also made it hard to sleep. My routine is disrupted and my head is a bit fuddled from the lack of sleep. When in pain and without enough sleep, prayer is not as easy as when I am pain-free and refreshed. So what is the solution to the problem of our lack of prayer? I am sure that it is not mere motivational speeches by visiting speakers. We need a supernatural solution for a supernatural problem. The good news is that there is a supernatural solution. This is what I will be outlining today. To do this I will take you through large chunks of Romans chapter 8.
Cycle of guilt
The first problem we encounter when it comes to prayer is guilt. The cycle goes something like this. You know that God has commanded that you pray. So you think I must pray. This is about as effective as a New Year’s resolution. For a few days you make an attempt at prayer. But then, you don’t pray for a few days and then you think I really should pray. But you feel guilty because you have not prayed and the guilt makes you think that you are not good enough to pray anyway. So the prayerlessness goes on and the guilt over lack of prayer won’t go away. Paul’s expression of despair in Romans 7:24 applies to us all. “What a wretched person I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death?” But thankfully the next verse applies just as well. “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The solution to our lack of prayer is not found in making more resolutions or in hearing inspiring messages which exhort us to prayer. Instead the answer is found in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 8:1-4 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.”
Given that we are sinners, the law of God, in this case the command to pray, is powerless to effect a change in us. But Jesus has dealt with the problem by becoming a sin offering and condemning sin so that we can do what is right by walking in the Spirit. He has undone condemnation. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The first step to having a life which is prayerful instead of prayerless is to realise that condemnation is undone. You can start again afresh without the weight of guilt over all the times that you did not pray. Jesus has dealt with your sin and your guilt. There is now a different way of living and that is by living life in the power of the Holy Spirit instead of trying to do it in your own power. This is good news because it is plain that trying to fix the problems in your prayer life on your own is not very successful.
A prayer mindset
The new life of being empowered by the Holy Spirit involves a new way of thinking.
Romans 8:5-8 “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”
There are two possible ways of behaving. Either we have a mind set on doing what the sinful nature wants or we have a mind set on what the Holy Spirit wants. Now in effect there is nothing stopping us from going on thinking like we have always thought about things and wanting what we have always wanted. There is just the one major drawback and that is the “mind of sinful man is death”. To have that mindset is to be opposed to God and when our mind is set this way it is impossible to do what God desires. We cannot please God when we think that way. But there is a choice. Since we have been set free from the law of sin and death by Jesus’ death and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (v2) we can have a mind set on the Spirit. The mind set on the Spirit leads to life. We can choose to live in the power of the Holy Spirit and to set our minds on what he wants instead of what our sinful desires tell us to want. And this is what we will choose since we are indwelt by the Spirit.
Walking in the Spirit
Romans 8:9-11 “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. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”
If you are a person who has given your life over to the Lordship of Christ, then you are a person who is controlled by the Spirit of God. There is a stark contrast expressed in this passage. If the Spirit does not dwell in you then you don’t belong to Christ. But if the Spirit of Christ is in you then he will give you life. This life will be completed in the resurrection of your body from the dead on the Last Day. But life is manifested in you now by the Spirit controlling your life in the present. What this means is that we can pray in the power of the Holy Spirit because the Spirit gives us a new set of desires. These desires are quite opposite to what our desires were when we were controlled by sin and by a mind set on doing sin. Now the Holy Spirit is working in us to draw us into a life of prayer. He puts into your mind and heart the desire to pray.
As I said it is possible to go with what your sinful nature wants to do, but if you listen to the Spirit calling you into prayer and cooperate then you will begin to want to pray more and more. The desire to pray does not originate within you, but it originates with the Holy Spirit who gives you that desire so that you will do obey God and pray. Saying that we are led into prayer by the Holy Spirit is not the same as saying that praying is somehow easy and will simply happen without our cooperation. Let me speak personally for a little while about my own prayer life to illustrate the point.
I want to pray. I do not wait for the muse to take me as it were, but I actively set about praying each day. I set the alarm in the morning so that I have time at the beginning of the day for Bible study and prayer. I get up at five and do some Bible study. At six thirty it is light enough to go for a walk so I walk and pray for about 30-40 minutes. I have a general idea of things which are good to pray about. I usually begin with thanksgiving and praise. As a general rule I pray about family, church, government, the persecuted church, my own issues and desires, things which I need to understand about the Bible and the world, work, some friends and acquaintances and the salvation of Australia. Some days it is more difficult to pray than others. If I am tired or distracted or upset about something it can take longer to get started in prayer. But walking in the Spirit is about setting your heart to listen and obey the Holy Spirit and his prompting within you. Since God desires that you pray the prompting to pray will be there. The choice we must make is to obey that prompting.
As I have a long drive to work I can choose to listen to the radio or to a CD. I do this some of the time. However, long car drives are a good opportunity to pray. In the car I often meditate on the Bible and pray about the day ahead or about people that come to mind. I believe that I will be led by the Spirit. Therefore when people or situations come to mind in the car or when I am working at home or shopping etc. I take this as a prompt from the Holy Spirit and I pray right then for the person who comes to mind. The more I obey these promptings of the Spirit the more I want to ignore other distractions like listening to the radio in the car and the more I want to pray. The more you pray the more you will want to pray.
As sons of God we cry, “Abba Father”
Now, let us consider why we pray.
Romans 8:12-17 “Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation– but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 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.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs– heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
We pray because we are the sons of God. The Holy Spirit leads us into a life of righteousness, including a life of prayer, because we are the sons of God. We know that we are sons of God because the Spirit is the Spirit of sonship. He leads us to pray, “Abba, Father”. This is a cry of trust. Our God is not some distant God who demands things from us. No. He is a Father who loves us as he loves his Son, Jesus. Our Father loves us so much that he has made us heirs of all his promises, and heirs of his kingdom in the same way that Jesus is the heir of God. Since we are heirs we have the privilege of communicating with our Father now. He gives us a share in his purposes in the present, not merely a share in his future kingdom. We pray, then, because we are looking forward to the kingdom of God and we are participating in the kingdom purposes of God in the present through prayer and through obedience.
Intercession of the Spirit
But there is a problem with prayer. Sometimes, no matter how much you might want to pray you cannot find the words. Sometimes it is simply an immense struggle. There are days when it seems impossible to pray at all. About 20 months ago I received a phone call one morning from my mother-in-law to say that my father-in-law had had a stroke. We went to the hospital and they told us that he had had a catastrophic bleed and might not live. It was a very stressful and emotional time. (My father in law in much recovered now although not totally). When something like that occurs it is difficult to pray. I would compare the feeling to trying to walk through treacle. On days like that I walk around the block and have no words to say. I want to pray but I cannot. But the Bible has good news for us when we cannot express words to God at all.
Romans 8:26-27 “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. 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.”
The Christian life cannot be lived in our own abilities. We have not got what it takes to be people of prayer without help. God knows that we are but dust, temporary like grass (Psalm 103:14-15). So in grace and mercy Father, Son and Spirit provide us with what we need to pray. When there are no words there is the Holy Spirit, who intercedes for us. His is a perfect prayer because “he who searches hearts knows the mind of the Spirit” and so the Holy Spirit does not even need words to be in tune with the with the will of God. Both Jesus (Rev 2:23) and the Father (1 Chron 28:9; Psalm 7:9) are said to search the heart. But this knowledge is a reciprocal knowledge since the Spirit knows the mind of God (1 Cor 2:10-11). Father, Son and Spirit are united in will, so when the Holy Spirit prays we know that he always prays according to the will of God. Now the Bible says that when we pray according to God’s will he hears us and if he hears us we know that we have what we asked for (1 John 5:14-15). Thus the intercession of the Spirit is a perfect and effectual intercession.
Intercession of Jesus
But there is more. Not only does the Holy Spirit intercede for us, in us and through us, but Jesus is constantly interceding for us from the right hand of God.
Romans 8:31-35 “What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all– how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died– more than that, who was raised to life– is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?”
Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father. He reigns. What is most significant regarding prayer is that from the place of authority Jesus stands between any accusations against us and the Father. The devil will happily accuse you of all sorts of things, some of which are even true. You have sinned. I have sinned. On the face of it, these things might prevent us from actually praying at all. However, Jesus does not allow those accusations to stand. He places his own righteousness between our sin and the eyes of the Father. No accusation against the people of God can hold water. Instead there is nothing which our Father will not give us, since he has already given us what is most precious to him, that is, his Son Jesus. If God has already given us the precious gift of Jesus, even allowing his own Son to die in our place, then he will absolutely, definitely look favourably upon any prayer that we pray.
Your prayers and mine are not in themselves worthy. But Jesus himself takes our prayers and brings them to the Father in his own name. He continually presents our case to his Father, and we know that since Jesus is utterly righteous and favoured in the sight of God, his prayers are always heard. We could not have a better advocate than the one who always did the will of God. We cannot have a better plea before God than the blood of Jesus Christ. This means that we can come with absolute confidence when we pray. As verse 35 onwards tells us, there is nothing which can separate us from the love of Christ. There is nothing which can prevent us being heard when we pray to our Father in Jesus’ name, since Jesus himself is always praying for us.
Prayer as participation
Our prayers are not made independently of that which God is doing in Christ and through the Spirit. Rather our prayer is a participation in the intercession of the Spirit and of Christ. The fact that the Holy Spirit intercedes for, in and through us is not a reason to not pray. It is an encouragement to pray even when we do not have the words or when we don’t know what to ask for. Knowing that the words are not so much the issue as the fact that when we pray we are turning to the Father in trust, we can pray without always being able to pray.
The fact that Jesus intercedes for us at the right hand of God is again not a reason for lack of prayer. It is rather a reason to continue faithfully in prayer. We can be sure that our prayers will be heard because we have a perfect advocate before the Father. Jesus makes our prayers perfectly acceptable by his own intercession. He takes our sometimes self-centred and feeble prayers and brings them to the Father filtered through his own perfect intercession. His shed blood means that we will never be rejected when we come to God in prayer.
We pray because prayer is a privilege of participating in what God is doing. The Father desires our prayer to be in accord with the intercession of the Son, and the Holy Spirit enables us to pray in a way which agrees with what Father and Son desire. We have not been left to our own devices in prayer. We have not been given up to use only our own resources, which are as we all know quite puny. Instead we have been given a share by God in something amazing and we have been equipped in a way that goes well beyond any human resource. The presence of the Holy Spirit in us as believers is the presence of God. He leads us in prayer, gives us the desire to prayer, gives us the words to pray, and prays for us when we have nothing left with which to pray at all. We are not alone. God is with us in our praying.
Let us pray.