Urgent Truths About Prayer

Let's ask God to, to do this work in us. Father, you are an amazing God. You desire our fellowship. For some reason, And even when we pray to you now, Lord, our prayers are often full of flaws and errors, and we're asking for stuff that are not according to your spirit and, And yet, Lord, you cherish the imperfect prayers of your people.

You smile upon Our prayers as we learn day by day and get better, hopefully, but, We just, we just cherish your heart in this, Lord, that you invite us to pray. Even now, long before we are perfect in praying. What a God of grace. Lord, we also know though that the stakes are very high.

We are in a battle for the souls of men, for our own souls. There are people Burning in hell today who have lost. And are, are lost. There are casualties in this war.

Our enemy is fierce. He is powerful on earth is not his equal. And we not only need to stand up to Him and his designs, but we need to move forward in accomplishing the designs of Jesus and fulfilling the mission you've given to us. And so Lord, we must pray.

Teach us to pray. And we ask this, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. We're doing a verse by verse study through the book of Ephesians, and as we continue in our study of this book, we come to Ephesians chapter 6, verse 18.

And, We are going to be able to look at a portion of verse 18 this morning, but that is as far as we're going to get. and the title of the message this morning is wartime praying. Wartime praying. It is very important, as we come to verses 18 through 20 in Ephesians chapter 6, that we understand, that there is a context for the truths that we're going to learn about prayer.

This is not just something we want to lift out of its context and say, wow, there's some neat truths about prayer that I can apply to my life. We need to understand that Paul's teaching on prayer, and these three verses is within the context of war and battle. And prayer is something that God gives to us as a privilege and a resource in the midst of spiritual battle. I want you to imagine as we begin this morning, two Christians praying.

One of the Christians praying is a soldier in the United States Army, and he's stationed in downtown Baghdad. And he is living every day in fear for his life. He's had a few buddies that have died in recent months, and he is always on edge and on the alert and suspicious of the people around him, never knowing if there's going to be a suicide bomber or what have you. And that Christian soldier in the United States Army in downtown Baghdad gets up this morning and he has his devotions, and he prays.

And you listen in on his prayer. What do you think his prayer would sound like? What would he ask for? What would be his burdens that he expresses to God?

Just imagine yourself listening in, And imagine the things that you would hear that soldier praying for. Now, leave Baghdad and go to another scene where there is another Christian who is on vacation in Hawaii. He has been there for a week. He has two weeks to go on vacation, 3 week family vacation.

He's there with his wife, his two children. The first week has gone splendidly. They've done whatever they wanted. Whenever they wanted, they get up in the morning and it's like there's nothing to do, no responsibility.

They're just really having a blessed time on vacation in Hawaii, and as great as the week has gone, The guy looks at his calendar and says, I still got 2 weeks to go. I'm doing whatever I want. Now, that Christian gets up this morning and he has his devotions, and he prays. And you listen in on this prayer.

What would his prayer sound like to you? What kinds of things would he ask for? Nothing wrong with being on vacation in Hawaii. But I don't think there's any doubt in any of our minds that the prayer of the man vacationing in Hawaii would be very different.

Than the prayer of the soldier in downtown Baghdad. why? Because war makes a difference, a huge difference. And we need to understand, folks, that We are in a war where the stakes are far higher than anything going on in Baghdad right now.

It is a very significant colossal war where literally thousands of people die every day. If we could have on our television news reports, the names of the casualties of this war and the names of every soul that passed off into eternity and eternal judgment. We would be sobered by how high the stakes are in this war. We have already learned in recent weeks about the realities of this war that we are involved in.

We learned back in chapter 5 verse 16 that the days in which we live are evil, evil because Satan has triumphed on so many fronts to such a degree that the world in which we live is characterized. as evil and we see this evil all around us. We also have learned in chapter 6 that there is a devil, there is an evil personality called the devil, who is always scheming and implementing schemes against us. We need to realize this.

And guys, I don't, I don't know that, that we, fully comprehend or ever even could fully comprehend the hate that drives the devil to do what he does. The devil is filled with hate against us because we were created in the image of the one that he despises above all else. He hates us all the more, especially because we are believers in Jesus and seeking to do His will. and serve his gospel purposes on this planet.

He is filled with hate. The devil also has absolutely no mercy, not one shred of compassion on your worst day where you are being pummeled by the evil one, never does the devil stop and say, I'm being hard on him here. And I just need to back off. I'm feeling a little bad.

I think I've overstepped. He never is guided by mercy or compassion. The devil relishes tearing lives and marriages apart. Destroying people.

When a shooter goes crazy at Virginia Tech a couple of weeks ago and shoots and kills 32 people in cold blood and then shoots himself, the devil laughs. And that. He rejoices in that. When the devil sees the, the weeping and the grieving of the families and the friends.

Of those that were killed, he rejoices in that. It satisfies that hate that is in him to see that. When lives are ripped apart by sin and bound by the ravages of sin, and people are experiencing in their own person the consequences of sin, when people do not repent of their sin, and they never believe in Jesus and they are damned to hell for eternity. and are even there right now.

The devil rejoices in that he has no pity, absolutely no pity. The screams of the damned are mingled with the laughter of the evil one who rejoices in the awful eternal fate that has befallen such souls. When we are in battle, when our hearts are torn apart with tragedy in our own lives, when we are defeated and we've done unthinkable things that we would have never thought we were capable of, the devil rejoices. This is a being that is filled with hate, and he is always scheming and implementing schemes against us, and he's very good at what he does.

Is he not? I remind you guys, if the devil can walk into the Garden of Eden, a perfect world where Adam and Eve had everything that they wanted and can walk with God in the cool of day. If the devil can walk into that garden, and sometime later, walk out, having gotten Adam and Eve to do the unthinkable. He must be very good at what he does.

He is a force to be reckoned with, and he is filled with hate and has the power often to carry out that hate to whatever degree that God allows him, were it not for the preventing grace of God, we would all be destroyed by him. He fires flaming arrows at us constantly. If the scales could be removed from our eyes, we would see arrows, flaming arrows, just screaming in every direction and hitting people, penetrating into their lives and setting them ablaze with the flames of lust and hate and murder and anger and condemnation.

And these arrows are often firing right at us.

Paul has taught us. We also do not just deal with this one intelligent being of Satan, but we also learn in verse 12, that there are a multitude. Hundreds of thousands, no doubt, perhaps millions of evil beings whose sole mission is to do the bidding of this one who is filled with hate. We learned in verse 12 that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

And so we are in close mortal combat with these evil intelligences. We know from 2 Corinthians 4:4 that the devil is blinding billions. The devil knows that all people need is to see the glory of God in the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ. And so he blinds billions of people on this planet.

And we see that blindness, not only as we look at our own life story before we came to Christ, but even as we interact with people and share the gospel with them that seems so clear to us, but so unclear to them. Yesterday I was sharing the gospel with a Buddhist from Vietnam. And at first, he was telling me about Buddhism. I was telling him about Christianity, and we were just like, well, my religion teaches this and well, mine teaches this and But at a point in the dialogue, I had to get personal with the guy and I said, listen, this is fine, but you have to know that God loves you and you have broken His law and began to share with him the gospel, but as I did, there was no comprehension, no comprehension.

In those moments I'm all the more grateful because the reason I got it is not because I'm smart. this gospel thing, we get it, but it's not because we're smart. We get it because God removed the blindness just in his total grace. And I pray for this young man who's a student at UCR that God will open his eyes to the glory of Christ that is in the gospel.

But when I see that blindness, and we've all seen that when we talk to people, It is the devil who blinds because he doesn't want them saved, and he doesn't want them saved because he wants them damned for eternity. This is the war that we are involved in. You say, what does this have to do with prayer? Well, Paul makes a very strong connection of these war realities to the prayer life that we are to have.

In fact, as he talks about this war and the realities of it, and then how we are to arm ourselves, it is then in verse 18 that he begins to talk about prayer. In fact, let me show you something grammatically, so the connection. in verse 17, he says, and take, this is the last two pieces of armor, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The, the verb take is a main verb, all right?

Now verse 18, with all prayer and petition, praying at all times. Now, in the English text, most translations don't bring this out. But in the Greek, it's with all prayer and petition, praying at all times. There's an ING at the end of the word pray in the Greek text.

And so if you don't have that in your English translation, I would encourage you to put that there, praying at all times in the Spirit and with this in view, being, being on the alert, again, you should put an ING. At the end of the word be. Now, why that's significant is this praying and being are both participles. And if that means nothing to you, that's OK.

All you need to know is that they are subordinate verbs that are attached to and further explain the main verb in verse 17, take the helmet of salvation. What he's saying is, hey, put on your armor, which includes a helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, while praying. Being alert, praying is something we do, not in addition to putting on the armor, but it's something we do while we put on our armor and our weaponry and while we wield those weapons in the spiritual war that we are engaged in.

So grammatically, verse 18 is very much tied to what Paul has been saying about the armor that we are to wear.

That's why the songwriter says, put on the gospel armor, each piece put on with. Prayer. OK. Prayer is not something separate.

It's something we do in connection with putting on the armor and then using that armor in the war that we are engaged in. All right. listen to this quote from John Piper regarding prayer. He says, this is the place of prayer on the.

Field of the world. It prayer is a wartime walkie talkie for spiritual warfare, not a domestic intercom to increase the comfort of the saints. And one of the reasons is prayer malfunctions in the hands of so many Christian soldiers is that they have gone AWOL. See, the problem with many of us is we don't get up in the morning and realize that we're in the middle of war.

We are living in downtown Baghdad. We just think we've got this Disneyland bouncy, happy, peacetime mentality, and we don't hear the diabolic bombs dropping and the bullets zinging overhead. We don't smell the Agent Orange, as John Piper says in his book, and the whitened harvest of this world. We don't see the devastation that's being wreaked.

We're not mindful of that. And so we're like, oh, I can pray. And we're using this wartime walkie talkie to just maybe service our own little petty personal desires. But the beauty is that God sends us out.

Here's your armor. Now go out there and deal with this enemy. And we look at the enemy and it's like, whoa, I don't want to go out there. God says, I'm sending you to go.

But here, here's a walkie talkie. It's called prayer. You always have access to me. I see everything.

I see the movements and the maneuvers of the enemy. I've got everything you need, and you take this walkie talkie and keep it in the on position and you can talk to me anytime. You can call in reinforcements. If you need air cover when you're going out and you're sharing the gospel with someone, whatever you need, you can talk to me and come to me.

And in a way, in addition to the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, and And the gospel cleats that we're supposed to wear, and the belt of truth that we're supposed to wear and the breastplate of righteousness, in a way, the last piece of armor is a walkie-talkie, where we can always communicate with God and get communication from Him also. That is the place of prayer. Now, what I want to share with you guys this morning, all we're going to have time to do is to share with you guys 4 urgent truths about prayer, 4 urgent truths.

About prayer.

Before we look at those, let me just real quickly give you two preliminary observations about prayer that we observe in this context. Number 1, realize that more is said about prayer in chapter 6 than about any other individual piece of armor. So more space is given to prayer than is given to Any individual piece of armor, whether it's the helmet, the sword, or whatever. So every piece of armor is important, but more space is given to prayer.

And that ought to tell us something about the importance of prayer in our Christian lives and in the battles that we are engaged in. Another observation that we can make from verse 18 is that in Paul's understanding, Prayer should be all encompassing in the Christian life. It should not just be a part of our lives, a category of our lives, but it is to be all of our lives. It is to consume all of our lives and everything that we do.

Look at verse 18, and notice how often the word all occurs with all prayer and petition. Praying at all times in the spirit and with this in view, being on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. A mistake we make sometimes is we compartmentalize prayer. how am I doing in my prayer life?

And I've got these other things I need to focus on. In addition to that, there is the prayer life, and we want to do well in that area and we focus on these areas and sometimes at the expense of our prayer life, Paul would say you cannot separate your prayer life from any other area. Prayer is to be as natural to you and all encompassing to you as breathing is. folks, in our own lives, there's a lot of things we need to give priority to.

Do any of us view breathing as a distinct area of our lives that we need to focus on or work on? Do we say to each other, hey, pray for me, hold me accountable. At the end of today, ask me if I breathe today. We don't do that.

Prayer is just something we do when we go shopping, when we're, when we're at work, when we're driving in the car, we are breathing. It, it breathing is something we do with everything else that we do. When, when people sit here in this building, and they listen to a sermon by me. Most of them are breathing.

breathing is something that we are always doing and prayer is to be that all encompassing. Prayer is to be something that we do with everything else that we do. And in our Christian life, when we read the word, when we're sharing the gospel, when we're going on the attack, and when we're talking as husbands and wives, When we're talking to our children, when we're fellowshipping with one another, everything is to be done in a spirit of prayer, just as breathing is so essential to everything else that we do.

And so those are just two preliminary observations.

But let's get on to some urgent truths about prayer that we can infer from, what we find just in the first part of verse 18, urgent truth number 1, that Paul specifically teaches us regarding prayer is that we must pray continuously and at every opportunity. We must pray continuously and at every opportunity. Look at what he says in verse 18, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times. The verb pray here is present tense, which often denotes continuous action in the Greek text, but Paul comes right out and makes it very clear that that's exactly what he means by adding at all times.

So, in every situation, we are to pray without fail. We're told elsewhere in the New Testament to pray without ceasing. In Philippians 4, we are told. With prayer and supplication, and everything to make our request known to God.

And the beauty of being told to pray at all times is this, understand that this is not Paul saying, hey, talk to God and everything. This is God speaking through Paul, saying, come to me and talk to me in everything. God could have said, you can talk to me, but only about the big stuff, OK? you can talk to me, but only once a year on the Day of Atonement.

And on that occasion, just one of you can come representing everybody else. He could have said all that stuff to us, but instead, God says, come to me, talk to me at all times and everything. In terms of the heart of God, do you see the heart of God and how much he longs for a relationship with us? He wants our relationship with him to go to everything that we have to deal with in our lives.

So, every matter, whether it's mundane or a big deal or a small deal, whether you're shopping or, or at work or whatever, just be living in a spirit of prayer, and God wants you to talk to him. In everything. That's how involved he wants to be in our lives as our closest and most intimate friend. Think about it.

Is there any human being in your life that has ever come to you and said, Talk to me at all times. In everything, come and talk to me about everything. Anyone ever had a human being say that? Randy or Phyllis, did she say that to you?

OK. Have you done that? OK., I can imagine someone maybe saying that, but then after a while saying, what, I changed my mind. Give me some space.

I'll inquire later whether that's happened with you guys. But God actually comes to us and says that, and he never wearies of us following through on that. And if we're going to be victorious in this war, as individuals and as a church, it's essential that we pray continuously and at every opportunity, at every time, all times without ceasing. one of the problems that we have in our Christian life, I remember a professor, at the university I attended, who talked about this is we tend to view talking to God like a phone.

Where, we come to God, we dial the phone and the Lord answers, we talk to him. I've got some needs here. And then when we're done in Jesus' name, amen, and we hang up the phone, and we always know we can pick it back up. But he suggested that the better picture is that as a Christian, the thing is we never hang up the phone.

We're not always talking out loud, but The Lord is always on the line and we never hang up the phone. And so imagine wearing a headset like people do today, the headgear that they call them gear heads now. Did that? People that have that in their ear, they're called gearheads.

but with, a headset like that on, attached to your cell phone, the Lord is always on the line. You can always speak to him and have him speak to you. And so we live and we fight. And we work in that open relationship with God, praying continuously and at every opportunity.

A second thing that is implied, and what Paul teaches in this passage is that when we pray, we must pray to God. And that might seem like a no-brainer to some, but I want to say just a couple of things about this. Paul never says the words in this text, pray to God. However, look at verse 18, with all prayer and underline the word prayer, and petition, pray, and you can underline the word pray.

That Greek word, the verb form is prasuke or the noun form is prasuke. Always has the idea of prayer or supplication to the eternal God. Whenever this word is used in a context where Christians praying is being described, it always universally in the scripture is speaking of prayer and supplication to the eternal God. And other than just the choice of words here, we have throughout the New Testament instructions, Philippians 4, make your request known to God.

He is the one that we address. When the disciples came to Jesus and said, Lord, teach us to pray, Jesus said, pray then in this way. Saint Matthew, who art in heaven. Is that what he says?

No, our father. This is his opportunity to teach us how to pray, and he says, talk to God when you pray. And I emphasize this because there are many, many who profess Jesus, sincere souls who profess the name of Christ, who when they pray, they pray to Mary. When they pray, they pray to one of the saints that has already died, and they address that saint with their need, expecting that saint to take that need to the Father on their behalf.

Folks, we have to understand that in the pages of Scripture, which is our final authority for faith and practice, you can read from Genesis to Revelation, never ever is there one example of anybody on earth praying. To a saint that has gone before. And in the New Testament, never are Christians ever taught to pray to Mary. Or to pray to a saint.

And please understand, there's a lot said about prayer. It's not like so little is said about prayer that it's OK to make up our rules as we go. There is a lot said about prayer. We have disciples coming to Jesus, Lord, teach us to pray.

OK. Here's how you pray. And so a lot is said about prayer, even in passages like this, and never are we instructed to pray to Mary or to pray to the saints. And so, We are getting our cues from scripture rather than various church traditions, then I think we're on safe grounds if we just do what we're taught to do in Scripture.

And if that's all that we're taught to do in Scripture is to pray to God, then that must be sufficient with regard to our prayer life. I was on a Roman Catholic website this past week where they had literally hundreds of saints that were listed alphabetically. any saint you want, that you want to talk to, and they also had it categorized by needs in your life. if you are experiencing a physical sickness, there's a particular saint that you can talk to about that, and they'll take your request to the father.

If you are single and you desperately want to get married, there's a saint that you can address that tends to focus more on that thing. If you're living in the United States as opposed to some other. Country, there's even a saint that they suggest that gives more focus to this particular geographical area on the planet. And so they've got this really, this huge sophisticated website alphabetically and arranged by topic where you can find just the right saint to talk to, given where you're living geographically and what the need is in your life.

God is not so complicated. God says, listen, Come to me. In fact, God wants you to go to him so badly. That he slew his son.

So that his son would shed his blood. And the veil separating us from the Holy of Holies would be torn in two, so that you could come into the very presence of God, boldly to the throne of grace, to obtain grace and mercy to help you in a time of need. And when we go to other saints who have gone before, I believe we devalue the atonement. We devalue something that God paid a very high price so that we ourselves would be able to do, and that is to come directly into his presence.

And so, the first urgent truth is that we must pray continuously and at every opportunity. Secondly, we must pray to God, And realized that he cherishes that. He desires that. He provided an atonement so that we could have access directly into his presence.

And then a third urgent truth is we must pray, asking out of a sense of urgent personal need. We must pray, being driven by a sense of urgent personal need. And we get this from a noun that shows up twice in verse 18. He says, with all prayer and petition, OK, there's the word petition that's in some of your translations, I think says supplication.

pray at all times in the Spirit and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. Now, the word that is translated petition is the ACEs that speaks of a need or a lack or a want, and then often is used to Speak of a request that is made based on that need, lack, or want. One commentator says regarding this word that this Greek word speaks of that which is asked with urgency based on presumed or understood need. And so God is not just saying, hey, talk to me at all times because I really need company.

Do it for me, because I need you to talk to me. That's not really the spirit. He wants us to talk to him. He wants that companionship, but we're not so much doing that for him.

He tells us you pray at all times because you need to pray at all times. Given the environment, the days are evil, the battle you're engaged in, given your own fleshly lust within you that are waging war against your soul, given your own propensity to evil, given your tendency that going any length of time without prayer, you find yourself saying and doing really stupid things that leave you shocked that you were even capable of that. Given all of these realities, you need to talk to me at all times and come to me with your needs.

And we need to be gripped by that.

And as I said two weeks ago, I'm not, some of you probably see me as a young person. 43 years old. My children see me as old. and so that makes me feel old.

The older I get, the more I understand how much I need prayer. And the more I'm just motivated to pray. Out of desperation and because I know I need it. It's, I, I'm doing it to please God, but I'm also doing it because I know how desperately I need prayer, and I am scared of who I am, apart from praying the way that I should.

And so we need to have a sense of urgency and prayer based on presumed need. Let me try to do this real quickly. you think of the example of Peter, leading up to Jesus' death, right after they had celebrated communion, The disciples we know from Luke's Gospel started arguing over which of them was the greatest in the kingdom. Isn't that amazing?

To celebrate the Lord's table, and then immediately, which of us is the greatest, and they're all making their case with each other. Jesus teaches them about how to be great in God's kingdom. But then in Luke 22:31, Jesus looks at Peter and says, Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. Now imagine yourself, you're in your own world, who's the greatest or whatever, and, and Jesus then rivets his eyes on you and says, Satan wanted to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.

You think you might be sobered by that? Something's going on in the cosmic realms where there's some designs against me. I, I think. That we would say, thank you, Jesus.

I must really need that. Look how Peter responds. But Peter said to him, Lord, with you, I'm ready to go both to prison and to death. I appreciate the prayers, but I'm ready.

I'm ready. They then leave that scene and they go to the Mount of Olives. And Jesus then says to all of the disciples, you will all fall away from or because of me this night. Look how Peter responds, rather than being sobered by that and realizing, oh my goodness, that evil must really be in me.

If Jesus is saying this, Peter said to Jesus, Even though all may fall away because of you, I will never fall away. Jesus, you're mostly right in what you're saying. These other disciples here, I can see them falling away. But even though all of these other disciples may fall away, I will never fall away from you.

So again, he's just not sober, he's not getting his need. and then Jesus contradicts him. And Jesus said to him, truly, I say to you that this very night before a rooster crows, you will deny me 3 times. So this is the 3rd time Jesus is basically warning Peter, and he's telling him specifically, you're going to deny me 3 times.

And you would think by this point, Peter would be sobered and fall on his knees and just humility, but instead, Peter said to him, even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you. You're wrong about me, Jesus. I love you, and I will not deny you. So they then go into the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus leaves the other disciples and takes Peter, James, and John further into the garden with him.

And then Jesus is about to leave Peter, James, and John to go pray. In the Garden of Gethsemane. But before he does, he has a word of instruction for Peter, James, and John. He says in Luke 22:40, pray that you may not enter into temptation.

And, and Matthew's Gospel, Matthew has him saying also keep watch. So he's telling them, you guys have to be watchful, you have to be alert, and you need to be praying that you will not get caught up in temptation. Well, Jesus leads them to pray and Jesus goes and prays. And about an hour later, he comes back and what are Peter, James, and John doing?

What are they doing? You're sleeping like some of you are. They're sleeping. And so Jesus wakes them up, and he said to Peter, so you men could not keep watch with me for one hour.

Keep watching and keep praying that you may not come into temptation. The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I know you love me, and I know that you are willing to follow me into death, but the flesh is weak. You are in greater need and in greater danger than you even realize right now.

And so even after that warning, he goes back to pray, and Peter, James, and John do what? Fall back to sleep. And so before Peter knows that, Jesus is arrested. He's standing trial while standing trial, Peter has people come up to him.

One of them says, you were with Jesus. The Bible says Peter denied it. Another person came up a little later and said, this is one of them, one of them, one of the disciples of Jesus. And again, Peter denied it.

And then the third person comes up to Peter and says, surely you are one of them. And he began to curse and swear. Peter literally called down. Damnation on himself.

Saying something like me. May I be damned. To eternal judgment if I am lying when I say I do not know that man. I call down upon myself the judgment of God if I am lying when I say I don't know Him.

Peter had Three warnings from Jesus himself. To encouragements, to pray and be alert. He sure loved Jesus, just like we do. He had a willing spirit just like we do.

But he still denied Jesus three times, the last of which he called down damnation upon himself. Peter turns and looks at Jesus, and Jesus turns and looks at him, and Peter went out and wept bitterly. No doubt stunned that he could be capable. Of such denial.

Even though Peter had all of these warnings and instructions from Jesus, he still denied Jesus three times. Why? Because he did not watch and he did not pray. He did not pray.

Jesus. had urged him to pray. I've lived long enough to do a lot of stupid things that on the other end of those things, I'm like, I'm like stunned at what's come out of me and that I could even be capable of such things. And I've learned enough to know that I have every reason to be terrified of myself.

When I am not praying. At all times. Paul says with petition, With an urgency driven by an awareness of your need for prayer. You need to pray to God.

Now, when he says make requests, To God. what, we'll talk about that next week. Let's move on to truth number 4, because we're running out of time here. Truth number 4, and this is the last truth we'll look at.

When we pray, we must pray in the spirit. We must pray in, the spirit. Look what he says in verse 18, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit. Now, what does it mean to pray in the Spirit?

It could mean pray by the Spirit's enablement. We don't even have the strength to pray like we should. So, let's depend upon the Spirit to enable us to pray. That's certainly involved in what he's saying.

It could mean pray with the Spirit or in the company of the Holy Spirit. We know from Romans, that the Spirit prays for us and with us with groanings that cannot be uttered. And the beauty of that is that we never pray alone. There has never been a time that you have ever prayed by yourself, though no other person may be around, the Spirit is there and he's praying, almost as it were, kneeling right beside you, and he's praying with you and for you with groanings that cannot be uttered, even when you don't even know what to ask for, The Spirit knows exactly what to ask for.

And so to pray in the Spirit can mean to pray by the Spirit's enablement or to pray with the Spirit, who is also praying with you. But I like lumping all of these together, including the idea that to pray in the Spirit means that we pray in the Spirit's will or by the Spirit's guidance. We don't just come to God and just with a blank slate, Just ask for whatever we want, whenever we want it to pray in the Spirit means that our prayers are being governed and guided by the Spirit, that we get our cues for what to pray from the Spirit himself.

And by the way, guys, if you want to pray that way to where your prayers are being governed and guided by the Spirit himself, What's the number one thing that you should do in order to make sure that happens?

How do we discern the spirit's mind today? How? Blurt it out. OK, OK, that's cool.

I think I heard Bible. OK, that's good enough. by reading the Bible, by reading the word, that is inspired by the Spirit. If you want to pray in the Spirit, then read your Bible, read the God-inspired word that was inspired, written through the Spirit's inspiration.

And as you are interacting with the Spirit through that means and listening to the Spirit, and then letting your prayers be. Informed by that, it can be said that you are praying in the Spirit. George Mueller is a guy that back in the 1800s was led by the Lord to found an orphanage that provided clothing and shelter for just thousands of orphans, and over the years of his life in ministry, he, he kept a journal, just thousands of prayer requests that he saw the Lord answer. and virtually everyone looks at George Mueller as being a man of prayer, right?

That's what he's known for, and indeed he was. But if you came to George Mueller and said, what is the secret to your prayer life? what his reply would be? His reply would be this.

Before being a man of prayer. I was and I am a man of the word. George Mueller, every 90 days, read through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, 4 times every year, he read through the Bible in its entirety. That's how you get to know the mind of the spirit that can then govern your prayers.

In fact, listen to him describe the dynamic of reading the word and prayer. Listen to what he says. He says, describing the point in his life where he started doing this. He says, now I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed.

And that thus by means of the Word of God, while meditating on it, my heart might be brought into what communion with the Lord. Listen to what else he says. I began, therefore, to meditate on the New Testament from the beginning, early in the morning. The first thing I did after having asked in a few words of the Lord's blessing be upon His precious word, was to begin to meditate on the word of God, searching as it were into every verse to get blessing.

out of it. After a very few minutes, my soul was often led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication. So that though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, it turned almost immediately into prayer. Last slide I'll show you today, he continues and says this.

When thus I have been for a while making confession or intercession or supplication or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all as I go on into prayer for myself or others as the word may lead to it. We tend to make a distinction. There's prayer, and then there's Bible reading. Guys like George Mueller did not make that distinction.

They did both at the same time. It was conversation with God. God speaks, my heart responds, I speak, I go on to the next verse. And guys like Mueller, I read recently, I believe it was George Whitfield, read through the entire Bible on his knees, on his knees.

Matthew Henry wrote much of his commentary on the Bible while on his knees. Prayer and time in the word were just interwoven beautifully, and thus they should be in our lives if we are truly interested in praying in the Spirit, being guided by the Spirit. That's why George Mueller could be so confident in his prayer life. When he came to God and said, God, this is what I need.

I'm doing such and such because it's what your word tells me to do, and this is what we need. He was absolutely confident that God would answer. Why? Because he had spent enough time with God in the word to where he was able to discern the mind of the spirit.

And so he's At his orphanage, they're supposed to have breakfast on a given morning and George Mueller knows that there is no food for breakfast. But Lord, I know that you called me to do this, and I know you want these mouths to be fed. So he called all of the workers and the orphans to breakfast, though there was no food. He had the table set.

And he said, we're going to say grace. And we're going to thank God for His provision. And they sat at an empty table. And he prayed and thanked God for his provision.

Of food. Right as he was done praying, a knock was at the door. They answered it coincidentally. The wheel of a milk truck had malfunctioned and they were not able to deliver the milk to all of the destinations for that day and they didn't want the milk to spoil, so they showed up at the door of the orphanage and said this is going to spoil if someone doesn't use it.

Can you guys use it? yeah. So, they took that and then also a bakery nearby had over baked bread for that day, and they brought, that morning, right after the milk truck, people had stopped by and they brought the extra bread and everyone had something to eat. Where do you get that confidence?

You get it from the spirit inspired book. As we spend time in it and let the Spirit speak to us and acquaint us with Himself and his passions and his priorities, and what he wants us to do, and then how he will provide for us, what his will is for us as we do what he has called us to do. We get to know the, the Spirit and the mind of the Spirit, and he governs our prayers. And when we pray something that the Spirit is leading us to pray, God always answers the Spirit's prayer.

Now that's a discipline and we all have a lot of growing to do. I asked for a lot of stuff that the Spirit's not asking for, right? I'm in the middle of a trial and my prayer is, Lord, get me out of this. The Spirit is kneeling next to me as it were saying, Lord, In this trial, conform Milton to the image of Jesus Christ.

Purify his faith. Am I praying for what the spirit? Wants me to pray for. Am I praying in the spirit?

And so, I know I have a lot of learning to do. I shared with people in the first service. I am in kindergarten. When it comes to prayer.

I have no business being up here teaching you about prayer. I am still in kindergarten on prayer because I have flunked every year. I've not been able to pass out of kindergarten. I have a lot to learn.

My prayer to God is still teach me to pray. Let's all make that our prayer. God, to teach us to pray as we process these things in our care groups tonight, and then even learning more from this passage next week. Let's ask God to really do a work in us when it comes to this subject of wartime praying, because every great work of God that God has ever done throughout church history has always been preceded by people who prayed.

Who prayed and called upon God to do those mighty things. And may we be a church full of individuals that do exactly that. May I ask you to bow your heads.