On Earth As It Is In Heaven

Transcript

If you would turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Romans, chapter 8, verse 26-27.

Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

— Romans 8

(ESV)

Trinity Church, this is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well as you made your way into the sanctuary this morning, I wonder if you happened to notice the mission statement of our church framed on the wall. It’s almost impossible to miss because it’s written in big white letters, intentionally placed on a black backdrop to make it pop. Okay? Now in case you didn’t see it or you missed it, our mission statement reads, Trinity Church

exists to faithfully exalt the triune God, transform all of life, and reach our city and world with the truth, goodness, and beauty of the gospel. I love that mission statement. It’s pretty straightforward, assuming of course that you understand what it means to faithfully exalt the triune God. For those of you that maybe don’t understand it completely, I’m just going to try to help you navigate this a bit. To exalt means to acclaim, to lift up. In our case, it means to worship God, and to do that faithfully means to worship in a way that is biblically accurate, consistent, and heartfelt, which means then that we as Christians should be enthusiastically and authentically worshiping the one true God in three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Even though the nature of the Trinity is hard to comprehend from a human perspective, these three persons in one God is precisely how the scriptures present the God we are to worship.

Worshiping the Trinity

So if that’s the case, if you’re not worshiping the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, you’re not faithfully worshiping the triune God. So my question for you this morning is, how are you doing in this area? For many, worshiping the Son Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, is a regular part of our church rhythms. I mean, after all, Jesus is the one who saved us by dying for us. Although the Trinity is very much central in the gospel, what is often accentuated in the gospel is that Jesus came, Jesus died, Jesus was raised, and Jesus is now ruling and reigning at the Father’s side. So we get worshiping Jesus well. For many of us, we have a framework for worshiping the Father, the first person of the Trinity. Because after all, the Father, in his great love for us, sent his Son Jesus to die for

us that we might be reconciled to the Father. So we mostly get the Father right when it comes to worship. But I wonder how often you think about intentionally worshiping the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. How often do you think about the Holy Spirit’s comprehensive work in your own life? Did you know that without the Holy Spirit drawing you to Jesus, you would not know Jesus, who the Father sent? And as important as that is, that’s just one of the aspects of the Holy Spirit’s work in your life. Throughout the scriptures, it’s clear that the Holy Spirit plays a massive role in the life of a believer. But for some reason, the Holy Spirit is often dismissed, neglected, and in some cases, abused or misrepresented. Which is one of the reasons why, brother and sister, Romans 8 is such an important chapter

for Christians to read and to understand. Because the Holy Spirit is most accentuated in this eighth chapter of Romans. It’s where you see the person and work of the Holy Spirit put on full display. And in our text this morning, it continues to emphasize the person and work of the Holy Spirit. But in a beautiful way, it also accentuates the work of the Trinity, specifically in the realm of prayer. I mean, how often have you thought about the Holy Spirit in your prayer life? For most people, we pray to the Father through the merits of or in the name of Jesus. But most of the time, the Holy Spirit doesn’t even get an honorable mention. Essentially what you see in our text this morning and what’s so important for us to see is how each person in the Trinity is active and at work in our prayer life.

The Spirit’s Help

But how the Holy Spirit, in particular, is helping us with our prayers when we don’t know what to pray for. And so this morning, to help us along in these two small verses, I’ve broken up our text into four sections. So we’ll look at the weakness, the words, the wisdom, and the will. So let’s begin with the weakness in the first half of verse 26. Likewise, the Spirit helps in our weakness. So just like our text last week, Paul begins these verses with another hinge word, which is meant to pull you backwards. We talked about this last week when you think about words like therefore or but or if. This word likewise, although a bit more rare, is one of those things. So Paul is using this word likewise, which could also be translated in the same way to pull us back and connect us to these previous verses, specifically verses 18 through 25,

which if you remember last week, those verses centered on the theme of groaning. Paul’s argument was that because of the fall, all of creation, which includes the children of God, must patiently wait for the redemption of our bodies. But until the redemption of our bodies comes and our hope is complete, there will be groaning. So creation groans and the children of God groan. And here Paul continues his train of thought with the theme of groaning to emphasize that the Holy Spirit is groaning. Paul is creatively using the concept of groaning to establish encouragement for the Christian that though we suffer from the effects of the fall, the Holy Spirit who dwells within you will help you. In fact, that is the primary role and work of the Holy Spirit to help. This is why Jesus himself said that I must go so that I can send the helper.

And that’s exactly what the Holy Spirit does. He helps. And if you look at the whole chapter of Romans 8, it explicitly showcases the help of the Holy Spirit, especially as it pertains to our sanctification or another word, another way to say that is our spiritual maturity. So to help you see how the Spirit has already throughout this chapter has been working, let’s just go through it briefly. Verse two, the Spirit of life, the Holy Spirit helps set us free from the law of sin and death. Verse four, the Spirit helps to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law, meaning that the Spirit helps us to please God. Verse six, the Spirit helps to give us life and peace. Verse 11, God will raise us from the dead by the help or the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. Verse 13, the Spirit helps us to put to death the deeds of the body.

Verse 14, the sons of God are being helped by the Holy Spirit who is leading and controlling us. Verses 15 and 16, the Spirit bears witness. In other words, he helps to give us assurance that we are indeed the children of God. Verses 18 through 25, and we looked at this last week, that though we suffer in this life, the Holy Spirit helps us endure because we have him indwelling in us as the guarantee that our suffering will eventually come to an end with our future redemption. And this morning with these two little verses, the Holy Spirit helps us again, specifically in the realm of our weakness. And what exactly is the weakness that Paul is referring to? Is it all of our weakness in general, or is it something more specific? Well, given the context, Paul is speaking about the weakness of our human fallenness.

Paul just got done talking about the suffering and the pain that we will experience in this life as a direct result of the fall. So we are not who we were made to be because of sin, because we’re fallen humans, and therefore we are weak in terms of our human limitations and abilities. And it is this weakness, brothers and sisters, that causes us to groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies, okay? But it’s not just our bodies that are weak, that need to be redeemed. It’s also our minds and our understanding, that which we think and believe, how we understand the world around us, and how we understand God’s providential hand that is perfectly moving in the world around us. Though general weakness is sometimes in view, what Paul is specifically and ultimately speaking about is our weakness in terms of our prayer life.

Our Weakness in Prayer

And what is it exactly about our prayers that reflect weakness? Well, it’s our words. And we see that in the middle of verse 26. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought. Now, before we dive into that which is wrong with our words, I wonder if you noticed that Paul says, we do not know what to pray for. Which sounds crazy. I mean, surely Paul doesn’t mean we as in him with us. That sounds crazy. I mean, you’ve heard Paul’s prayers before, right? There doesn’t seem to be a single word that Paul uses that is out of pocket or out of step and is not well thought out. I mean, the only thing that I can think of that might be wrong with Paul’s words is that he uses these crazy run-on sentences. But other than that, Paul’s prayers are beautiful and robust.

Like take, for example, Romans chapter 8, 33 through 36. Listen to this, brothers and sisters,

oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid for from him and through him and to him are all things to him. Be glory forever. Amen.

— Romans 11

(ESV)

That doesn’t sound like a weak prayer to me. I wish I could pray prayers like that. Or what about when Paul prays for other people? Like in Philippians chapter one, verse nine through 11, and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit

of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Beautiful. Neither one of those prayers, at least in my view, seems to be lacking or weak in any way. But the apostle Paul throws himself into the mix with us that all of God’s people need help in prayer. And that’s good for us to hear and see that even Paul, with his lofty, theologically dense and beautiful prayers, he needs help just like we need help. I mean, if I’m being honest with you, this is a great encouragement to me. This helps rid my prayer life of insecurity. When I feel like all of the limitations of my prayer life are hanging in the balance. What kind of help is Paul specifically referring to and what does he mean specifically when he says that we don’t know what to pray for? Because that seems kind of a strange thing to say, because Jesus himself taught us to

pray. In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter six, verse nine through 13, Jesus says, pray then like this.

Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

— Matthew 6

(ESV)

Jesus has given us the what to say and the how to pray. So then what exactly is the weakness and where do we need help? Well, we know for sure that the help we need is not in the how we pray because the verse doesn’t say that we don’t know how to pray as we ought. The verse says we don’t know what to pray as we ought. And I think the what in that verse clues us into the weakness.

What Paul is driving at here is that because we are fallen, because we are weak, when we pray, the content of those prayers won’t always perfectly map with God’s perfect plan for us. Which means that sometimes when we pray, we need help. We need help to pray the will of God. You see, brothers and sisters, there’s a difference between the revealed will of God and the secret will of God. So in our fallen state, we are capable of praying the revealed will of God. Not perfectly, but effectively. We know what to pray for in so much that it corresponds with what God reveals in scripture. So for example, the Bible tells us explicitly to pray for one another. And you see an example of that in James 5.16, therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. The Bible tells us to pray for our government and for political leaders.

We see that in First Timothy. We’re called to pray for our enemies. We see that in Matthew. So the things that God has revealed in his word to pray for, we can pray those things. And we should pray those things. And we don’t necessarily need a whole lot of help to pray those things. But when it comes to the secret will of God, the undisclosed mind of God, it’s impossible for us to know what to pray for. We don’t always pray as we ought to pray. And that word ought is the whole point, meaning we won’t always pray perfectly in every situation. We always ought to pray for God’s perfect will, but we don’t know his perfect will. So we sometimes pray, or we sometimes don’t pray as we ought. In the immediate context that Paul is referencing here concerning not having the ability to

pray the secret will of God, this whole context here is primarily, brothers and sisters, about sickness and suffering and hardships. Everything that we talked about last week, this is a continuation of Paul’s train of thought. So for example, when suffering, should we pray for healing? Or should we pray that God help us to suffer well for endurance? We don’t know for sure what God’s will is for us in any particular trial. We don’t know how God is providentially using our suffering. And so if we’re asking for reprieve or relief, we might be asking God for the wrong thing. And in the same way, when it comes to extremely difficult decisions, maybe your job has become incredibly difficult for you. It’s stressing you out. You’re flooded with anxiety. Do you ask God to give you another job? Or do you ask God to help you to deal with the difficulties?

Maybe you find yourself frustrated with the decline of our city and you feel unsafe in your home. Do you pray for God to provide for you a way out of the city? Or do you pray, God, help me to navigate the frustrations and the fears of our city? Help me to weather the storm graciously and to be a witness in our city. Which way is the right way to pray? Maybe God’s perfect will for you is to leave your job. Maybe, and this is a big maybe, God’s will for you is to leave the city. Or maybe God will use all of the difficulties that are orbiting around you to produce more patience, to produce reliance, to produce endurance. The point is, you don’t know what God is doing in and through every difficult situation. So we don’t always know what to pray. And so in those moments, we need help with our words.

I mean, even the Apostle Paul, with his beautiful theological robust prayers, experienced this kind of tension in his weakness. He did not pray the right way. Just to qualify this, 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 7 through 10. The Apostle Paul writes, so to keep me from being conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. And here’s where it gets crazy. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions

and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Paul was praying contrary to the will of God three times. But God answered Paul and essentially said, you’re praying the wrong way, Paul. You don’t get it. I have a purpose for you in this particular trial with this thorn that is in your side, and that purpose is to demonstrate my strength in your weakness. Paul. There’s purpose for it.

The Spirit’s Intercession

And listen, this is important for us to know, there wasn’t anything morally wrong or sinful with Paul’s request for God to remove the thorn in his flesh. In fact, I would submit this is a pattern for us to go before God and pray, God, I can’t deal with this. This is difficult. This is hard for me. Take it away.

But we don’t know the will of God. We don’t know what he’s doing. And just like God had better purposes for Paul with those difficult situations and prayed the wrong way, we also can pray the wrong will of God. But this is our comfort because God cares about us and our prayers, because God wants us to pray the right way for the right situation. And because God delights in answering the right prayers for you, meaning the prayers that align with his goodness and his purposes for you, look at what he does. He gives us the Holy Spirit to help us, and that should be great comfort to you. Look at the last part of verse twenty six, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, pleads for us. That’s what it means to intercede.

It means to intervene and speak on our behalf. The Holy Spirit who dwells within you is constantly praying for you when you don’t know what to pray for or when you pray the wrong will of God. I mean, just think about this for a second. Don’t let this just kind of pass over you. The God of heaven, the transcendent God of the cosmos, who spoke the galaxies into existence, who by the power of his words created creation out of nothing, including you. He lives inside of his people. He has taken up residency inside of you. The indwelling Holy Spirit. Is always listening, always intervening, which means the Holy Spirit is always, always, always active in your life, even when you don’t feel it. Even when you deny it. He is perfect and he is present and he is forever praying for us when we get it wrong.

With what the text says is groanings too deep for words. And what does that mean? Groanings too deep for words. I’m going to try to help unpack this a little bit, but first off, it’s important for you to not get in the weeds with the word groaning. A lot of people, especially more hyper charismatic folks, can take this groaning and import all kinds of extra on it. But to be clear, this groaning is not a proof text for speaking in tongues or for having a special prayer language. Now, listen, wherever you sit with that, it’s all good.

I’m just saying that this is not the verse. As a proof text for that, I could think of a whole bunch of other verses to use as a text for that, but not this one. Because if you remember, Paul was using groanings as a creative theme to emphasize the already, but not yet the sufferings of this present time that Christians endure with hope. Paul said that creation is groaning. So was Paul being literal about creation or was he being metaphorical? Well, we know that he was being metaphorical because creation has no personhood, has no emotion. So creation can’t groan. This is Paul’s poetry here. And though the spirit, the third person of the Trinity is a person and is capable of experiencing emotions, I hope you understand that you can grieve the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit can feel things, though he can feel things.

That doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit is actually groaning for us in the same way that Paul poetically and metaphorically personifies creation as groaning. Here, Paul uses the same theme of groaning to creatively emphasize that the Holy Spirit sympathizes with our weakness. He sympathizes with us. He feels our pain and our suffering, he’s in us, he knows what you’re going through, he knows the challenges that you’re facing. He’s he sympathizes with our weakness, he knows when our words fail us because he dwells within us, he’s acquainted with our inability to pray the right thing at all the right times, and therefore the spirit desires to help us. By interceding for us and when it says groanings too deep for words, this just means he’s silently sympathizing with us. He’s interceding, but he’s interceding in a way that we can’t hear.

So he’s sympathizing with our weakness and he’s interceding, and this, brothers and sisters, by the way, is exactly what Jesus does for us as well. He sympathizes with our weakness and he intercedes for us, Hebrews four verses 15 through 16, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near, come to him in prayer, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive our request. And find grace to help in time of need. Romans 8

says, and Pastor Greg will wonderfully unpack this in a few weeks, who is to condemn Christ. Jesus is the one who died more than that, who was raised, who was at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

So, brothers and sisters, we have two persons of the Trinity sympathizing with our weakness and interceding for us in our weakness. And that should be a great encouragement to you when you find yourself in moments of desperation and brokenness and depression and need. When you don’t know what to pray.

You have two persons in the Trinity interceding on your behalf, that should be a great encouragement to you. God is pleading your case to God. That’s crazy. The 19th century Baptist preacher Octavius Winslow illustrates this intercession in a way that I think is helpful, and he writes in a bit of a tongue that’s old school, so I’m going to paraphrase it a little bit. He writes, Imagine an anxious and embarrassed client engaging in some important legal matter or perhaps battling for his life in a court of justice. And at his side stands his counselor, who is thoroughly acquainted with the nature of this case and is deeply versed in the law. He is there to instruct his clients to shape the course of action with which argument to support, with pleas to urge and with the right words to plead his legal case. Such is the advocacy and such is the aid or help of the spirit in the matter of prayer.

And this is exactly what the text is referring to. But where the illustration falls short is that we have a perfect counselor. A perfect advisor, a perfect attorney who takes the broken words and the misunderstandings concerning the perfect will of God. And he perfectly pleads our case using perfect words and perfect wisdom that is beyond our human understanding, which brings us to the first part of verse twenty seven with the wisdom. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit is here, brothers and sisters, where we see the wisdom of God manifested in our human weakness, where we see the entire Godhead, the Trinity at work in the weakness of our prayers. The he who searches hearts is the father. The first person of the Trinity, the father bends his ears to his creatures, those whom he created. He bends his ears to hear our prayers and to read our hearts.

And as he reads our hearts, he knows the mind of the Holy Spirit who dwells within you, who is interceding for you, along with Jesus, who is in heaven interceding for you. So you have God, the father, listening to the intercession of the spirit on earth within you. You have the father listening to the intercession of Jesus in heaven, both making their plea on your behalf with perfect prayers because they have perfect wisdom concerning themselves. God is not pitted against himself in his prayer life, God is one and his mind is one. And what is amazing about this reality is that there is a temporal and transcendent dimension to this Trinitarian work of prayer. That means that no matter where we are or where we find ourselves, the Holy Spirit and Jesus are interceding for you because the spirit dwells in you. There’s nowhere you can go to hide from his prayers.

There’s nowhere you can go where the spirit is not there. And because Jesus reigns in heaven exercising ultimate authority, there’s no way you can go to run from Jesus. Jesus is always there. We are fully encompassed in intercession on earth and in heaven. In other words, we’re completely surrounded by God’s intercession. And this, brothers and sisters, puts a whole new spin on being covered in prayer. And this is perhaps one of Scripture’s most vivid pictures of the nature and work of Trinity in the life of a believer. And just to make it completely clear, this intercession, this cosmic intercession, this transcendent intercession, this supernatural intercession is uniquely for the Christian. It’s uniquely for the Christian. For the child of God, the Holy Spirit can only intercede for those. Whom he indwells. The child of God, those who have trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins.

God’s Perfect Will

Jesus himself only intercedes for the children of God. John 17, nine says, I am not praying for the world. But for those whom you have given me. For they are yours, he’s speaking of the father. So even in the exclusivity of this intercession, you see the work of the Trinity. Now, listen, though this prayer, this fully orbed prayer is unique for the Christian.

The invitation to receive Jesus, the invitation to receive the indwelling Holy Spirit, the invitation to be reconciled to the father is freely extended to anyone who would trust and believe. All you have to do is confess your sins and take him by faith, believe that he is who he says he is and he will be yours. He will save you. Jesus will save you and the Holy Spirit will indwell you and you will be reconciled to the father. That invitation is open to anyone who would trust and believe. Now, what is the result of this interdimensional intercession, this cosmic intercession? What’s actually happening here when the father reads the mind of the spirit? Well, all of our misguided prayers, hear me, are well intentioned, misguided prayers are in real time transformed and conformed to the perfect will of God.

And we see that in the second half of verse twenty seven with the will. Because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So the father reads our hearts and he hears the spirit on our behalf. And makes our prayers in real time aligned with the father’s perfect will. Do you understand what this means, brothers and sisters? It means that though we pray prayers with fallen lips. With a fallen mind, every prayer we pray is in accordance with God’s will because the spirit intercepts those prayers and he intercedes for those prayers and he conforms those prayers to the will of God. And the beauty in all this is that God will hear and answer every prayer that perfectly aligns with his will. And we see that in first John, chapter five, verse fourteen and fifteen. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to

his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. This is one of the greatest comforts we have as Christians. That our prayers are properly heard because our prayers with the help of the Holy Spirit are properly prayed. Our prayers with the help of the Holy Spirit are properly prayed and when they are properly prayed, our prayers are answered perfectly. That’s a whole lot of peas. But it’s true.

God will answer all of those prayers that are in line with God’s will, and the spirit is conforming those prayers to God’s will. So this means, brothers and sisters, that you can pray freely. You could pray freely. Whatever is on your heart. You could pray. And the father who reads your heart will hear the spirit’s plea and he will sort out all the details according to his perfect plan. This is liberating. Do you understand how liberating that is for your prayer life? You don’t have to figure everything out.

J.I. Packer in his book, Prayer, he says this, don’t fret, just pray. God fixes our prayers on the way up. Amazing. If he does not answer the prayer we made, he will answer the prayer we should have made. That is all anyone needs to know, meaning you don’t need to be preoccupied with all the technical things or with all the nuances concerning the will of God. Pray freely. Ask audaciously.

God will fix it in the mix. In real time. That’s a comforting reality. Comforting reality. That in the end. God will fix it. And brothers and sisters. Though we might not always know this. This is really what we want. This is really what we want. We don’t want God to answer our prayers without the Holy Spirit conforming those prayers to the will of God. We don’t want to pray things that are out of step or out of pocket with God’s perfect and meticulous providence.

Because we are not God, we rarely see what’s going on in this world, how God is moving and orchestrating all the affairs of the cosmos together all at the same time. We don’t know what’s going on. God does. Because God is universally sovereign and he exercises comprehensive providence.

He knows what he’s doing and he’s working everything together for our good. Do you believe that, Christian? Do you believe that he’s working out everything for your good? Using meticulous providence to bring it about. How would that work out if we were praying prayers that were not in align with God’s meticulous providence?

It would be all bad. It would backfire on us and the ripple effect would have cosmic consequences. I mean, imagine if there was an autonomous zone. In the realm of God’s domain, and we were left to ourselves to live and to function, to do whatever we wanted and receive whatever we asked for. Would you really want to take up residency there? I mean, it sounds ideal and it’s what some people in our world think we need to do, but that’s actually bogus. A space where one decides what he wants and another person decides what he wants. Well, what happens when this person doesn’t get what he wants and that person doesn’t get what he wants? Inevitably, there’s conflict. And how do you think that’s going to work out?

It’s going to go all bad. You would constantly be fearful, constantly relying on other people to keep their end of the deal in check. But in a world like that, there’s no real protection. There’s no guarantee. Everything is left up to chance. That sounds like a very scary place to live.

Give me providence. Give me providence and I will rest safely knowing that God has everything sorted out for my good, for your good, for the world’s good and for his glory. Praise be to God that he is universally sovereign and that he exercises comprehensive providence. That not one thing, not one thing in this world happens without him exercising perfect providence, without him holding all things together with his providential hand. Not one promotion, not one diagnosis, not one relationship, not one word. He’s working all things together. This is why Jesus tells us to pray on earth as it is in heaven. And here’s the thing, you can’t pray on earth as it is in heaven without the Holy Spirit taking your prayers, prayed on earth and conforming them to the will of the God who reigns in heaven.

There’s no other way to go about that. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, well, if the Holy Spirit changes my prayers and conforms my prayers to the will of God, then what’s the point of me praying anyway? Why pray? Well, first of all, we pray because God commanded us to pray, and that should be the end of the argument.

God commands us to pray. But though that’s true. We should see prayer not as something we are obligated to do, though God commands us to do it, but instead we should see prayer as something we are privileged to do. God, in his infinite wisdom and in his wonderful love to us, gives us his ear. He calls us into his presence to speak with him, to adore him, to posture ourselves in dependence, to ask him questions, to bring our needs to him, to commune with him, to delight in him, to know him and to be known by him.

The question shouldn’t be, why should we pray, but instead, why do we get to pray? He is the creator. We are the creatures. He is God. We are fallen humans. He made us. And he beckons us to come to him. And pray to him. Because of his love, he calls us.

And because of his love, he helps us when we pray the wrong will. That’s a lot of love. It’s a lot of love. R.C. Sproul, he deals with this question way better than I ever could. In fact, he deals with this question and always deals with questions way better than anyone could.

He says, we pray to glorify God. But we also pray in order to receive the benefits of prayer from his hand. Prayer is for our benefit. Even in light of the fact that God knows the end from the beginning, it is our privilege to bring the whole of our finite existence into the glory of his infinite presence. Prayer is not simply a soliloquy, a mere exercise in therapeutic self-analysis or religious recitation. Prayer is discourse with the personal God himself there in the act and dynamic of praying. I bring my whole life under his gaze. Yes, he knows what is in my mind, but I still have the privilege of articulating to him what is there. So he says, come. Speak to me. Make your requests known to me. So we come in order to know him and to be known by him. Amen.

Praying with Freedom

I have a few points of application from this text, a few encouragements, maybe challenges. The first is, if the triune God is actively involved in listening to our prayers, in interceding for us, then brothers and sisters, why are we not praying more frequently? And I say this to myself. Why are we not praying more? Do you believe God is listening? Do you believe that God answers your prayers?

Do you not see the lengths in which the Trinity goes to hear your prayers, how the Trinity is working out your prayers to make them perfect and presentable? The mere fact that he does this proves that he listens and that he answers. That he answers. If the entire Trinity is working to perfect your prayers, then you can know with certainty that our prayers are in some mysterious way important to God. That they mean something. So why are we not praying more? We should be praying more.

Second, and this is important, maybe for some. Just because God is conforming your prayers doesn’t mean that God is critiquing your prayers. There’s a difference. He’s not looking at all of the ways that you messed up your prayer. Or all the ways that you misspoke or you used insufficient language to pray. Now he’s he’s helping. He’s helping. He’s correcting your prayers in real time because he loves you, because he cares for you. He wants you to flourish. He wants you to grow in godliness. So don’t misunderstand the father reading your heart as some sort of judgment or gauge of spiritual maturity, but rather see it as a good father who condescends to his little children who don’t quite know what they’re asking for. And see the spirit as lovingly and graciously translating your heartfelt desires in a way that is perfectly appropriate for you. That corresponds with God’s design to mature you and grow you in godliness.

See it not as critique, but as a magnificent extension of care for his children. Third, be free to pray freely. You don’t always have to know the will of God to pray to God. The weight of the will of God does not rest on your shoulders. You don’t have to know everything. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar or a pastor to pray with expectancy. Or efficacy. You don’t got to throw up these Pauline type prayers. Start using all kinds of big words that you normally don’t use. You don’t need a prayer with some kind of professional prayer voice.

Use your own words. Express your true self to him. He knows. And he’s listening. And finally, brothers and sisters, pray audacious prayers. Pray supernatural prayers. Don’t be afraid to make all your requests known to him. Pray for things that are impossible from a human perspective so that when God answers it, you will know that it was God who did it.

When it comes to those. Listen to me when it comes to those in our congregation who are suffering. Pray audacious prayers of healing. You don’t have to feel insecure about praying for God to heal a person. Because you don’t know the will of God. And I would say to you that you don’t need to take on the responsibility when praying for someone to be healed, to say, you know, Lord, heal them. But, you know, only if it’s your will, God, then if it’s not your will, then don’t heal them. You don’t do that. Don’t don’t pray that way. Pray God would heal them. Our love for them should compel us to pray for them without the caveat. Well, you know, but unless you want to do something else, Lord.

Don’t do that. It doesn’t do anything for the person who is suffering to hear you say that. Pray with confidence, pray with expectancy and let the Lord sort it out. Our prayers will be fixed on the way up. So don’t do that, lovingly pray for those who are suffering in our congregation, that God would do magnificent, unimaginable things, supernatural things, and watch what God does.

Because in the end, God will work out his will and we will submit to his will and we will delight in the fact that God answered our prayer in a way that was perfect for the suffering person and perfect for us. So pray audacious prayers as we prepare for this 24 hours of prayer. What will you pray? How will you pray? What is stopping you from praying audacious prayers? The answer, ding, ding, ding, is nothing. Nothing is stopping you. So pray with expectancy.

A Prayer for Healing

Brothers and sisters, this morning, I want I want to close our time together in God’s word by doing something that’s a bit atypical for a Sunday service. Given what we’ve just heard preached, I’d like for us to put some of what we just heard into action. Now, most of you know our sister Sarah Jane has cancer. And it’s my understanding that she’s in stage four cancer. Next week, Sarah Jane begins radiation therapy. And we have prayed for Sarah Jane before in our member meetings, the elders have prayed for her in our elder meetings. We’ve anointed her with oil.

The reason why we do that is because we believe God can heal her. Sarah Jane is suffering. And she is a single mom with two young children, which makes this whole situation incredibly complicated and incredibly confusing. And we love Sarah Jane, we love Ezra and we love Moses. And so this morning, we are going to pray that God would heal her from cancer. We’re going to pray that God would heal her. We’re going to pray audaciously. We’re going to pray that God would do a supernatural work in her body to heal her. And so at this point, I’m going to invite Sarah to come to the front. Sarah Jane, would you come to the front? And then I’m going to ask all of you, and I know we normally don’t do this, but I’d like to ask every Christian in the room to come and lay hands on Sarah Jane.

I’m asked the elders to come up here as we pray, would you extend your hands and pray with us? And use what we’ve learned this morning as a template to pray enthusiastically and confidently and boldly, knowing that we have the triune God at work in the midst of our prayers. And let’s ask for God to do something that only God can do.

Triune God, compassionate, merciful. The God who will restore all of creation to the salvation brought by the work of Jesus, we come to you pleading for our sister, Sarah. Oh, Lord, you have seen her. You know her. You have discerned her every thought from afar. And because you have seen her and you are the sympathetic, compassionate God, and you are the mighty God, we ask you to stretch out your hand and heal Sarah of cancer. We pray against the tumors that they would be killed, the cancer cells, every single last one of them to be eliminated.

We ask that you would give glory to your name through this Lord. Who else but you can take the glory for this Lord for healing stage for cancer, and we know you can do it. And father, we desire Sarah to be here to raise her boys in the fear and admonition of you. We desire that for her. And so we pray yet again fervently that you would heal her either by medicine or by miracle that you would see her and save her because she belongs to you.

Father, you know, Sarah Jane, you have called her into your kingdom. She is yours. You have miraculously brought her into the lights and she follows you, Lord. So, father, we pray for this child of God. And we pray that you would comfort her with your presence and comfort her with your healing. Lord, this is no big thing for you. So we pray that indeed you would reach out and touch her body and restore her, Lord, and allow her, Lord, to continue to walk before you for your glory with praise on her lips. But father, we ask this through the son and through the spirit, because you can and you can be glorified through that. And we will give you all the praise when this happens in Jesus name. Amen.

Father, in our fallenness and in our weakness, we ask that you would bless us with your grace, in our groaning. As we groan for Sarah Jane’s body, which has been wrecked by cancer, our words are weak and simple, heal God. Heal. You can do it, father. You can do it. And so we pray, oh, Lord, in God, do a miracle, do the unthinkable, do what only you can do by whatever means possible. And we pray these things in the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit, who is working all things together. For Sarah Jane’s good. Amen.

Amen.