9. The Armor of God: Praying Always in the Spirit

Alright, so this is going to be the last of the sessions on the armor of God.

Today we're going to be going through praying always in Ephesians 6 .18.

Alright, so what's our charge? You guys know where this is. This is in Ephesians 6. We'll read verses 10 -15 and then 15 -20.

Finally, be strong in the Lord in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

For 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.

Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with the truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

In addition to all, taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the

Spirit, which is the word of God. And I use the ESV for this last part. Praying at all times in the

Spirit, with all prayer and supplication, to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which

I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare boldly as I ought to speak. Okay, so we know our charge.

Let's just do a quick review. You know this already. Belt of truth, offensive or defensive? Defensive, right?

The truth of God is at the cross, that our sins are paid for. Our sin and shame is no longer an issue.

God has covered that at the cross. Our sins are paid for. He covered us with the belt of truth, which covers our loins.

Breastplate of righteousness, offensive or defensive? Defensive, right? You've received the righteousness of Christ.

That's a perfect righteousness. You are now in right relationship with God because of what Jesus did.

He's done everything you needed to do in order to receive eternal life.

Shoes of peace, offense or defense? Defensive, right? You've been enabled to stand, to fight, and carry the message of hope that will change the world.

The message that changed you is the message you proclaim to the people around you so that they too have the hope that lies within them.

Christ in you, the hope of glory. So we go out and we evangelize, which is what we've been commanded to do.

And we put these feet on, the shoes on, because when you're in a fight, you need good shoes. You ever try to fight somebody barefoot?

Not good, right? You're going to get hurt. Shield of faith, offensive or defensive? Defensive, right?

Faith connects us to the power and the promises of God to quell or subdue our doubts and fears.

God is your shield. God is our very great reward. He's our shield. So when we trust in God and listen to what

He said, we're going to take God at His word. He's going to keep His promises despite what we see going around us.

Helmet of salvation, offensive or defensive? Defensive. Protects us from the lies that the enemy tries to get you to believe.

God's sheep hear His voice. The Episcopal Church says it every Sunday. The world is catechizing you.

If your head and mind is not in the word of God to push out the things that the world is trying to push in, you are going to conform yourself to the pattern of this world.

We do not want to do that. We need to feed our mind with the word of God. Sword of the

Spirit, offensive or defensive? Offensive. This is the word of God.

This is what Jesus used when He was battling the devil in the wilderness. He kept saying to the devil, it is written, it is written, it is written.

How wonderful it would be when we have doubts in our mind or people mocking us for our faith.

We say, it is written, it is written, it is written. Why? Because that's God's word. So the first three are fastened to the body.

If you're a Christian, these things are fastened to you. They can't come off. You're in Christ.

The last three are easily picked up or put down. Those are the things that we need to put on in order to fight the good fight of faith.

And mostly, this is going to be about prayer. So all this armor is designed to protect us and to empower us to what?

Pray in the Spirit. That's how Paul ends this whole thing. Put on this armor.

Now, let's pray in the Spirit. Prayer is an offensive attack on the enemy.

So when we gather for worship, when we gather for study and we pray, we gather

Wednesday nights to pray, this is an offensive weapon. We are doing spiritual battle.

We may not feel like that, but that's actually what's happening. So it's important that we go on the offense.

Jesus says, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail. The gates of hell are designed to keep us out.

We are to kick those doors in, go into the world, right, and proclaim the gospel to see the dead come to life.

We are on a rescue mission to those people who are inside those gates. We have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

We go in with light. We bring that light to them, praying that God's Spirit would move upon their minds and hearts and translate them into the kingdom of light, okay?

All right, praying always. Paul concludes his discussion of the Christian's armor by telling the Ephesians that the armor is dependent.

The armory needs to be under the control of the pilot. You and I need to be in close contact with God, and the means by which we stay in contact is prayer.

Prayer is not so much another weapon that the Christian has been given as it is the means by which all of his or her weaponry is kept effective under the control and guidance of God.

So when we're in constant contact with God and recognizing that we are in God's, God's Spirit lives within us, when we go out into the world, we are his ambassador.

We are representing him, and we are in constant contact with him so that when an attack comes, we're ready. Now, I know prayer is a struggle for many of us.

You ask most Christians, what's the weakest area of your Christian life? Prayer.

I know I could say that for myself. I need to pray more. I need to be in the

Word and praying. Most Christians desire to pray more and pray better. Even the disciples said, teach us to pray.

Listen, when you're in a pinch, pray the Lord's Prayer. That's what I do, our

Father in Heaven. Lord, I can call you Father. You're my Father. Do I really understand that?

Lord, help me to help that truth to be resolved in my heart that I can walk into the world boldly knowing that you're my

Father. May your kingdom come, not my kingdom, not my will, but your kingdom and your will come, your will be done.

And I just grew through the Lord's Prayer. It's a model that gives me a springboard to pray additional things with that.

So there are four things that characterize all of our prayers. First, we are to pray in the Spirit at all times.

We're going to get into what that means. We are to pray with all prayer and supplication. Anybody want to give a definition of what supplication is?

Supplication is an appeal or a petition for something. We could be praying for something for ourselves.

We could be praying for something for someone else. It could be healing. It could be provision. It could be peace.

A lot of different things. We're petitioning God to do something for us or for someone else.

With all perseverance. What's perseverance? Endurance, diligence, persistent.

We want to be like the persistent widow. Just keep coming to God. Lord, please. And it's recognizing your dependence upon Him and bringing your petition before Him with all perseverance.

And finally, making supplication for all the saints. We have a prayer list on Wednesday night. We pray for the local churches.

We pray for the churches that we're affiliated with. We want to pray for the saints worldwide. We pray for the persecuted church.

This is warfare. We are going to our God. He hears those prayers, and how

He answers them is up to Him. He could dispatch angels. He could do whatever He wants. But He hears those prayers, and those are the means by which

God moves. Okay. Praying in the spirit. The most important characteristic for our prayers is that they are to be in the spirit.

So what does that mean? We might pray simply to be seen praying, like the Pharisees, who made sure at the set hours of Jewish prayer they were standing on the street corners where as many people as possible could see their piety.

Look at me. Thank goodness I'm not like that publican over there. Right? So they're praying to be seen.

They're not praying with the right motive. Right? They're to be, they're making a spectacle of themselves.

They're drawing attention to themselves. Prayer is to draw attention to God, acknowledging your humbleness, your weakness, and coming to Him for His strength.

Our prayers might simply be an attempt to get what we want in life. James says you do not have because you do not ask.

Now we should pray for things that we want. But you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.

Maybe you're coveting something. Lord, I want a BMW. You know, all these different things you end up praying for that are superficial things rather than the things that God's concerned about in the kingdom.

Praying for our relatives, their salvation. Praying that our church would be sustained and God would draw the elect here so that we would be overflowing, so that we could have

Hope Reform Baptist East, Hope Reform Baptist West, North, South. Right? We pray for the schools, the classical

Christian schools, that God would fill them to overflowing so we'd have to open up more. You don't want to pray with the wrong motives, with the wrong desires.

You might be coveting something. These prayers are offered in the flesh rather than in the spirit.

Prayers offered without any reverence to God and His will, but simply motivated by the desires of our own idolatries.

Right? We have to recognize our idols. What are they? You don't want to pray for something that's going to put you deeper into the idolatry that you're in already.

It could be relationships. It could be money. It could be a lot of different things. So we need to have the right motivation when we come to pray.

Prayer in the spirit is the outflow and outworking of a relationship with God, which is itself rooted and grounded in His Word.

So our prayers have to be in line with God's Word. You know what that means? You need to be in God's Word in order for your prayers to be aligned with that, to know what

God's Word is and then to pray accordingly. In Ephesians 6,

Paul identified the Word of God as the sword of the spirit. So prayer in the spirit is prayer that flows from understanding that Word.

Right? So we read the Word of God. If we don't understand it, we ask questions, go to the elders.

We do research. We read commentaries. We find out what that passage means, and then we pray in accordance with God's Word.

A strong relationship with God and praying in the Holy Spirit go hand in hand. Praying in the spirit is not a mystical experience, but rather praying that is prompted and guided by the

Holy Spirit. Now, the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth.

Right? God's Word is truth. The spirit authored the Word. So if you're praying according to God's Word, you're praying in the spirit.

If you're praying things outside of God's Word, you're praying in the flesh. Maybe it's wrong motives. Maybe it's for wrong things.

Like if you pray, God, I pray that you would strike so -and -so down.

Mm -mm. Not good. But here's what you can pray. Lord, you know your enemies. Scatter your enemies from before you.

May they fall into the pits that they've dug for others, like Naaman, be hung on the gallows that he made for someone else.

Now, God knows who those people are. We don't. So we want to pray in precatory psalms, right, so that God would take action and establish the righteous and give justice to the wicked.

But we don't name them specifically. God knows their names. Almost everyone prays when a crisis hits, when death is near, when you feel out of your depth, before a difficult exam, or while awaiting the results of a medical test.

But sometimes there is no real relationship behind those prayers. People are praying not to one they know as their

Heavenly Father, entrusting the outcome of the situation to His reliable faithfulness, but to a

God they don't know, hoping that for some obscure reason, He will pull something out of the bag for them.

When you go to God and you're praying for certain things, you say, Thy will be done.

I'm going to accept whatever your decision is because I know that's what's best for me. Is anybody in here omniscient?

The answer is no. You don't even have to raise your hand. You're not omniscient. God is. God's all -powerful.

If you had all power and all knowledge, tomorrow will look exactly the way

God planned it today. We plan things tomorrow and we're like, this should change, that should change.

Not for God. He's omniscient and all -powerful. He has a plan. He has a decree. He's your

Father, and you trust Him with the outcome. Look at what happened with Job.

As Job's going through the midst of this trial, what does he say? Though He slay me, yet I will praise

Him. I know that my Redeemer lives and will one day stand again upon the earth. Trust.

Faith. I know that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to their purpose.

I stand on the Word of God knowing that even if it's a trial or something really difficult,

God has my good, He has His good will in mind for the outcome for me.

Only those who are God's children can truly pray in the Spirit. If you're praying with selfish motives, oh

God, I want this to happen, and if it doesn't happen, well, I don't know if I'm going to follow you. Paul tells us in Romans 8, 14 through 16, for all who are led by the

Spirit of God, the Spirit of God is the author of the Scriptures, so if you're led by the Scriptures, you are sons of God.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry,

Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

If you're born again, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you. When you read the Word of God, it's going to resonate with you.

There's some really difficult things in the Word of God. I did a talk yesterday on total depravity. Tough to understand?

No, tough to swallow. These are things that we have to grapple with. Does God allow someone to have cancer for a reason?

Yeah, He does. He can work in the midst of that. Remember, this is His plan. This is about Him and His glory.

It's not about us and our pleasure and our entertainment. This is about God.

If you're a Christian, you have received the Holy Spirit. How many blessings have you received according to Ephesians chapter 1?

All of them, thank you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

How many blessings? Every spiritual blessing. It's yours because you're in Christ. Remember, you've been adopted.

You were the orphan. God is now your Father. Everything He has, you are the heir to. Whatever power

He has, you have access to that. Whatever He has, you have access to that because you're

His child, coming with the right motives, coming with the understanding that God has a plan.

And I'm going to trust in His plan. There are not two different levels of Christians.

Those who have and those who have not yet received the Holy Spirit. In charismatic circles and Pentecostal circles, they say you have to pray to receive the

Holy Spirit, evidenced by speaking in tongues. And many people who are Christians already are now praying for what's called the second blessing.

And what the Holy Spirit has come to do, the function of the Holy Spirit is to bring unity to the body.

And now people with bad doctrine are now using it to cause division. Oh, you have the Holy Spirit.

You don't have the Holy Spirit. You haven't spoken in tongues. And now the congregation is divided into two. Those who are praying on their knees to receive the

Spirit of God, they have the Spirit of God in them already if they're Christians. It's bad doctrine.

If you are a child of God by faith in Christ, you have received the Spirit. That's why the prayer of the

Lord taught of all His disciples to pray starts out with, Our Father.

If both sides of that congregation, those who spoke in tongues and those who haven't spoken tongues, can all pray

Our Father, well then each one of them has all the spiritual blessings in Christ.

You need not beg God for something that He's given you already. It's deceptive.

The Lord's Prayer is not a cry to some unknown God. It's a prayer based on a personal relationship with God that enables you to address the

Creator of the universe as Father. He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies.

If you are a child of God, you can go to Him as your Father. You can pray Our Father and all those blessings are yours.

The result of that adoption is that whenever you pray, the Spirit testifies that you are part of God's family and therefore have the right to come into God's presence.

The Father is delighted that you have come to speak to Him. Every good father wants communication with their children.

The more communication, the better it is. 1 Corinthians, we're going to have to go through this.

So this is a verse that some Charismatics, most Charismatics and Pentecostals use to say,

See, we're called, this is what praying in the Spirit is. So it's 1 Corinthians chapter 14,

Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue, the word tongue is just language, so one who speaks in a language should pray that he may interpret.

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What am

I to do? Now, do you think that's a positive thing or a negative thing about what he's talking about?

My mind is unfruitful. Is that a good thing? No. No, it's not.

What's the commandment? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

If your mind is unfruitful, that's not a good thing. Why would Paul say at the end of this,

What am I to do? People look at that and say, Well, yeah, your mind is unfruitful because you've disconnected your mind.

The Spirit is just flowing through you, and you're praying things that you don't know. Paul says, What am I to do if your mind is unfruitful?

I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind also. I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.

Get it? He wants to know that what he's praying is intelligible.

He understands it in his mind. So when people start saying, Well, it's an unknown heavenly language that nobody knows, including the person praying it, that's not a good thing.

Paul's saying, What you pray, your mind has to be engaged, and you need to know what you're praying.

Praying this unintelligible language is not fruitful for your mind, and it's not fruitful for anyone else either.

Watch. Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say amen to your thanksgiving when he doesn't know what you're saying?

That's not... This is an admonition, not a commendation. He's admonishing them.

Don't do this. Don't pray in a tongue that you don't know and they don't know. How's that going to help anybody?

The other movements, charismatic and Pentecostal movements, turn this thing on its head. They say,

This is a good thing. Pray. Everybody pray in tongues. People are praying in tongues, which

I don't think exists, right? That way, it's an actual intelligible language. They're saying it's an unintelligible language.

For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. If someone else isn't being built up and they don't know what's going on, that's not a good thing.

For I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. Nevertheless, in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10 ,000 words in a tongue.

How, after reading this, could you encourage the whole congregation to stand up and pray in tongues when no one knows what those tongues are, can't interpret it, and no one's being edified?

That's why people come into those congregations and say, This is nuts.

It's unbiblical. Brothers, do not be children in your thinking.

Don't be children. You're supposed to have childlike faith, not childish faith.

Be infants in evil, but in your thinking, be mature. In the

Lord is written, By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners, I will speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the

Lord. Now, anybody know where Paul is quoting when he says,

By a people of strange tongues and the lips of foreigners, I will speak to this people? No.

I mean, that's a fulfillment, okay, and Joel talks about pouring the

Spirit out on people and they'll have dreams and visions. He says this in Isaiah, and this is, again, an admonition.

Why? Because the Israelites were being deported to Babylon, and you know what?

When they were deported to Babylon, people were speaking to them in an unknown language, a language they didn't understand.

This was judgment upon Israel because they didn't keep the law of God. God dispersed them to other nations, and now they're stuck in a place where they don't know the language.

Follow? So if they would have kept God's law, God would have kept them in the land. They rebelled against God's law, and they were spewed out of the land.

Now they're stuck in Babylon hearing people talk to them, and they don't understand.

So this is not a good thing for the Jews, and quoting it here is proof that this is not a good thing for the

Jews. Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers.

Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret.

So if somebody does actually pray in a tongue, which is a language, a known language, it has to be interpreted for the people around them so that they understand.

So do you see how this is not a commendation of being unfruitful in your mind?

He says, engage in thinking. Don't be like children. You need to keep your mind about you.

Ephesians tells us, put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds.

Paul is concerned with intelligibility here, and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

So this isn't a command, a commendation to speak in tongues that nobody knows.

Does that make sense to everybody? Okay, good. When you pray, do you come to your

Father and know and trust, or do you come to a total stranger? The Bible says that Jesus came into the world precisely so that he could have a close, ongoing relationship with God.

John 1 -12, we read, to all who did receive him, Jesus, who believed in his name, he gave them the right to become children of God.

Of course, that statement presupposes the fact that we're not all naturally born children of God.

Again, remember what the Pope said two weeks ago? Everyone's God's children. Hindu, Muslim, Jew, we're all

God's children. And it takes courage to talk about faith. That doesn't take courage.

It takes courage to say what Jesus says. I am the way, the truth, and life. No one gets to the Father but through me. That's it.

Jesus is the only way. There's no other name under heaven and earth by which men must be saved. Pretty clear that the apostles got the message too.

That takes courage. What the Pope said, not courage. Indeed, we are all quite the reverse until we receive

Jesus. We're not children of God as soon as we're born. That's why we need to be born again.

God was rightly angry with us for all the wrong things we thought and said and did. Even our best and kindest deeds were defective and unacceptable before a perfect and holy

God. We're born into this world as sinners. But as his children, after we've received

Jesus, we've repented and trusted him, we had the astonishing privilege of praying to him in the spirit, according to his word, with his spirit in us, understanding our deepest longings and desires and communicating them to God, while at the same time reflecting back to us

God's personal love and care. We're reminded over and over again that as God's children, he loves us.

He is for us, not against us. Who can make a charge against those whom God has chosen? All those promises for God's children apply to you.

Read them over and over and over. Get them so drilled into your head that you don't need to read them. You just say them in your mind, because that's what you're going to need when you're out on the street and you don't have your

Bible with you. It's got to be, I hide God's word in my heart that I may not sin against him.

That's why just as communication issues in marriage are usually a diagnostic of deeper issues in the relationship, problems in prayer are not fundamentally a prayer issue.

They are a relational issue. If you have a real relationship with God, you're going to be talking to him on a regular basis.

In fact, throughout the day, you're going to be talking to God. You realize, you know, sometimes I'm walking around and I'm talking to God and doing things.

Prayer is not something that you have to sit down or get on your knees and have a formal thing. It's good to do that, right?

In the morning, I try. I sit in my chair. I focus my mind, and I start to pray, and I go through my list.

But throughout the day, it's not like at work I'm going to get on the ground and start praying. I can pray at my desk.

I can pray when I'm driving. I can pray anywhere. That's the beautiful part about prayer. We are in constant communication with God.

Take advantage of that. God is your Father. He wants you to communicate with him.

But what about unanswered prayer? This is always a difficult thing, right? Unanswered prayers can be challenging, especially when we're praying for good things.

These moments test whether our relationship with God is genuine or if we're using prayer as a technique to get what we want.

Are we praying, my will be done? Or are we praying, thy will be done? Will you become angry at God when he doesn't give you what you want?

You know, look, if my son came to me when he was eight years old and said, Dad, I want the keys to the car. No. But I want them.

Now, would it be loving if he was throwing a tantrum and said, Okay, here you go, buddy. Take the keys. Have fun. No, that's not loving.

Right? God is loving. He's not going to give you something that you can't handle. That wouldn't be loving.

You're going to get hurt. So sometimes if God denies something to you, you trust.

Okay, he knows better than me. Recognizing that God's delay is not God's denial. It's not like he's trying to deny you of something.

He's trying to work you into something that he wants for you maybe in the future or never. The Apostle Paul's experience in prison is an example of finding purpose in difficult circumstances.

He didn't pray for a jailbreak when he was writing a letter to the Philippians. He didn't say,

Guys, listen, get me out of here. He's like, Rejoice. I've been placed here for the advancement of the gospel, the advancement of the kingdom.

He used his circumstances to glorify God. He says the word rejoice 14 times. Like, I'm thinking,

What word would I use constantly throughout that letter? I don't think it'd be rejoice. That's my flesh, right?

Praying in the spirit is a way to remember that you're not alone. He is with you and he is for you. God is with you.

That needs to sink from here to here. He's with you all the time. Lives inside of you.

I said it last week. I think he's the God above, the God beside, and the God within. You've got God the Father above us,

Jesus, who is God in the flesh, and the spirit that lives inside of us. It's amazing.

Remember, God's love is that of a good parent who sometimes must deny his children's request for their own good.

It's loving. Discipline is love. God disciplines those he loves.

If you're not experiencing God's discipline, you've got to ask yourself, Do I have a real relationship with him? What's happening?

Unanswered prayer may be God's way of removing distractions, toys, from your spiritual growth.

Sometimes we're asking for things that are going to cause us to spend more time doing those things.

Where God says, I want you focused on me. I give you that. I give you the

Corvette you're praying for. You're going to take a Sunday morning drive rather than come to Sunday school. Not good.

Praying in the spirit encourages believers to trust in God's love and presence even when they can't feel it or see their prayers answered.

We trust in the God who loves us. Unanswered prayers are not a sign that God doesn't love you.

They are a sign that God does love you. Good parents love their children unconditionally, but that doesn't mean they give them everything they ask for.

Did you ever meet a kid who got everything he asked for or she asked for? Spoiled, rotten.

You see these kids screaming in the shopping center or whatever, and the parent, okay, here, take this.

It's just constant. They're constantly giving the kid something to appease him.

What are you teaching him? The louder he screams, the more he gets. What do you think he's going to do? He's going to scream louder.

I want that toy. I want that toy. And all those things are so unfulfilling. It's not a good thing.

We're praying at all times. We pray for all kinds of occasions and all kinds of circumstances. James talks about this in his letter when he said,

Is any among you suffering? Let them pray. Anyone cheerful? Let them sing praise. Anyone sick?

Let them call for the elders. So we pray when we need something, if we're suffering. We praise

God when we're cheerful, when he's blessed us. And then when we're sick, we call the elders to pray.

We pray in all times. We pray when things are difficult. We pray when things are good. We pray when we're happy or sad.

We pray at all times in all circumstances. When my children come home, I want to hear. This is

Dugan. When my children come home, I want to hear about their day, what was good, what was bad, what was indifferent.

It doesn't have to be of earth -shattering importance. I'm interested because I'm dad.

My children can and do text me about anything and everything at any hour of the day or night. In fact, I consider that I'd failed as a parent if the only time my children talked to me was when they wanted my help.

I want them to know that I love and care for them and that this is the relationship that God desired to have with you and me.

He wants us to pray on all kinds of occasions because that is part of having a childlike relationship with him.

Children are constantly dependent on God for everything. Children are constantly dependent on their parents for everything, and children of God should be constantly dependent on God for everything, bringing all of our prayers and petitions to him like a father.

No prayer is too big or too small. Yes, that was me. Okay, I couldn't find a quote.

So I encourage people when we're praying Wednesday nights, there are some people who have been praying for years, and you can tell, and it's beautiful.

But I just want people to just pray. If you haven't started to pray, Lord, thank you for this day.

Thank you for my family. Thank you for my job. Thank you for my health. In Jesus' name.

It doesn't have to be a long, lengthy prayer. Pour your heart out to God. And other people, listen to your prayers.

And those encourage them. Those get them to be, and we become unified. When I know you're praying for something and you're praying for something, now

I know what's on your heart. So when I think about you, I can pray for that issue. So don't be afraid to pray.

No prayer is too big or too small. All right, some prayers are too big.

You're supposed to laugh. It was a joke. Okay. So remember, who intercedes for us?

Who's our great high priest? Jesus. All right. Prayer as a relationship.

Prayer should be seen as an expression of our ongoing relationship with God rather than a task to perform.

It involves responding to the Spirit's promptings with thanksgiving, requests, intercession, and confessions. The role of the

Holy Spirit. The Spirit aids us in our weaknesses. Interceding on our behalf with groanings too deep for words.

Empowering our prayers. Sanctifying our prayers to align them with God's will. Jesus' intercession.

He sits at the right hand of God interceding for us. Jesus exemplified perfect prayer and continues to intercede for us, ensuring our imperfect prayers are heard and fulfilled according to what is best for us.

We have a great high priest that intercedes. The presence of God in prayer. Prayer is an opportunity to meet with God and experience his presence, transforming our hearts and minds through communion with him.

And finally, persistent prayer. Embracing prayer is the natural outflow of our relationship with God, and it leads to peace, love, faith, empowering us to persistently pray in all circumstances for ourselves and others.

The same way you would talk to your spouse or your brother or your sister or a friend, you talk to God continually, recognizing he is the

King of kings, but he's also your father. I want you to listen to what Jesus' high priestly prayer is in John 17.

I just got to speed this up a little. Jesus says, I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me. That's to the

Father. God the Father gave a people to Jesus. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

This is betrothal language. God the Father picks a bride and is giving the bride to Jesus as the groom.

Our communion with Jesus, our covenant with Jesus is a marriage covenant. Now they know us.

Everything you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed you sent me.

I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

You are called, beloved, and kept, Jude said. Jesus is praying for you.

He's not praying for the world. He's praying for his bride. All mine, Jesus' are yours, the

Father's, and all yours, the Father, are mine, and I'm glorified in them, and I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.

Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. Now Jesus is the perfect intercessor.

He's a perfect, sinless, spotless Son of God. Do you think his prayers get answered? Yes. Every prayer

Jesus prays gets answered. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me.

I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the Son of Destruction. But now I am coming to you, and these things

I speak in the world, that they may have joy fulfilled in themselves. Are you walking in joy?

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of this world. But just as I am not of this world,

I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. So you ever hear dispensationalism, the rapture, that God takes you out of the world?

What did Jesus pray? I do not ask that you take them out of the world.

You're going to be in the world for a reason, to advance the kingdom of God here. But I want you to know something.

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. As children of God, you are otherworldly.

You are a citizen of heaven. You are a citizen of a kingdom that cannot be destroyed. You are a citizen of a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

This world is being shook, but as Christians, we stand on the word of God. We're in the kingdom.

We don't get shaken. God is doing something. Pray that His will be done.

Sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth. Sanctified means being made holy. You become more holy as you read

God's word, apply it to your heart, and carry it out through your day. As you sent me into the world, so I've sent them into the world.

Do not be afraid to go into the world. That's your job. What happened at the Tower of Babel? God said, all right, disperse.

Go throughout the land. They said, nah, we're going to build a tower. We're going to congregate together. We're going to build a tower.

God's like, no, you're not. New language. And for their sake,

I consecrate myself that they may also be sanctified in truth. Jesus is set apart to intercede for His people.

He's interceding for us right now. In Ephesians 6 .18,

Paul told us, actually taught us, praying at all times in the spirit, all prayer and supplication, to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and also for me that words may be given me in the opening of my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which

I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. Let's see how that could be personally focused.

Praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication, to that end, with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and also for, insert your name here, that words may be given to Anthony Uvinio in the opening of my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which

I am an ambassador, not in chains, thankfully, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.

We are to proclaim the message of God's kingdom and His gospel boldly with full assurance of faith.

He's our Father. He sent us into the world, the Great Commission, to bring the gospel, put on the shoes of peace, wear your armor, and bring it.

What's our task? A good buddy of mine, Eric Hernandez, wrote a book called

The Lazy Approach to Evangelism. I don't own the book. I've heard great things about it. But I trust him.

He's a great apologist and a friend of mine. And this is what he says. If a Christian believes

God answers prayer, then their degree of time spent in prayer will be directly correlated to this belief.

If you believe that God answers prayer, the time you spend in prayer is going to correlate to how strong your belief in that statement is.

Hence, a person with adequate knowledge about prayer will devote sufficient time to prayer.

By contrast, a person who vaguely understands prayer will rarely rely on it as a viable discipline, and this will be reflected in their minimal to no time spent in prayer.

Your prayer life is a reflection of your conviction and belief in God. If you truly believe that He answers prayer, why are you not praying?

Maybe you lack belief. Lord, help my unbelief. Some quotes to leave us with.

Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saints upon their knees. William Cowper. Prayer is a strong wall and a fortress of the church.

It is a goodly Christian weapon. Martin Luther. A prayerless soul is a

Christless soul. Spurgeon. It is well said that neglected prayer is the birthplace of all evil.

Spurgeon again. Where there is much prayer, there will be much of the Spirit. Where there is much of the

Spirit, there will be an ever -increasing prayer life. Andrew Murray. I loved the

Lord because He had heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because He inclined His ear to hear me, therefore

I will call on Him as long as I live. Then I called upon the name of the Lord, O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul.

Who quoted that? That's Psalm 116. We come to Him.

He hears our voice. He hears our pleas for mercy. He inclines His ear to His children's prayer.

Please don't neglect the discipline of prayer, the power of prayer, the offensive weapon that prayer is.

We need to be in prayer. Look at what's going on around us. We need to be in prayer.

So let's review. There's a struggle to pray. We recognize that. But if we're intentional about it, we set time aside for it, we need to do this.

We need to be intentional. We pray in the Spirit. That means according to God's Word. We need to be fruitful in our minds.

If we know God's Word, we're going to pray according to His will. We can go through the Psalms and pray those. We can pray

God's Word. Are you God's child? If you are in relationship with God, God's your

Father. He is near. He hears your prayers. He hears your hearts. He wants you to communicate with Him.

Unanswered prayer. We recognize that God's delay is not God's denial. He has a reason for denying what we ask for, and it's for our benefit.

It's for our good. We pray at all times, and we don't need a set time that we get on our knees, although that's a good thing.

I'm not saying don't do that. Do that if you can. But you pray throughout the day. You pray when you're driving. You pray when you're sitting alone.

You pray at all times, when you're walking around, when you're at work at your desk, or wherever it is you work, driving maybe.

You pray at all times. God is near you. He hears you. We remember the one who intercedes for us.

Jesus' prayers never go unanswered. He prayed that we would not be taken out of the world and that we would belong to Him, and we would be raised on the last day.

So you have the security of knowing that you're in God's hand, you're in the Father's hand, you're in the Son's hand, and nothing can pluck you out.

No attack of the enemy is going to derail you if you're God's child. And with that, any final questions?

I'm hoping that you guys benefited from this series and recognize that we have an incredible relationship with God.

We have the privilege of our sins being paid for. He's given us armor and just called us to go out and advance the kingdom of God.