Lord, will you teach us to pray? Friday 31st May 2024

AN UNPREACHED SERMON (182)

[Photo by Ben White on Unsplash]

When Jesus was here on earth, He amassed together many followers. Not all of them were as committed to Him as He would have liked, but there were those seriously willing to listen to and learn from Him. If there is one outstanding thing that impressed them it was His prayer life. So much so that on one occasion they asked Him outright, “Lord, will you teach us to pray?” If those close to Him felt the need to be instructed in this most basic of all religious practices, how much more do we? But Jesus is no longer around to ask, at least not in the way He was years ago. Who can teach us? Who can we go to for help?

This is an area of our Christian lives where we need constant help, and the Holy Spirit is willing and able to provide that assistance. I reckon there is one key verse that both highlights the problem and provides the solution. “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” (Romans 8:26). At the practical level, there are certain things He does to help us.

THE SPIRIT PREPARES US FOR PRAYER.

Prayer is both an audience and an appointment. The Holy Spirit helps us to realise that the invitation to pray is for us. He secures our admittance into God’s presence and assures us of a warm welcome. But this means two things.

We can’t just rush into God’s presence. Access to the Divine presence is never a slipshod affair. Just as you would not expect to turn up at Balmoral or Buckingham Palace and trundle in, so our entrance into the throne room of heaven requires pause, thought and preparation. Don’t rush in where angels fear to tread. Realise what you are about to do – come deliberately into the presence of Almighty God; hush, don’t rush. “Be still and know that He is God” (Psalm 46:10). 

Preparation is essential. Surely this requires a preliminary period of silence to adjust our thinking. This is not a waste of time but will set its mark upon the subsequent praying. One of the works of the Holy Spirit is as Introducer. He takes us by the hand and reverently ushers us into God’s presence. Where we might be reticent to come before the Lord in prayer, “the Spirit helps us in or weakness” and we are never more aware of our weakness than we when come to pray. Often, we don’t know what to say and wonder how to go about it. Those first few, reflective moments are the opportunity for the Spirit to do what He does best: compose our hearts, guide our thinking and build up confidence in the rightness of what we are doing.

THE SPIRIT INITIATES THE WHOLE PROCESS OF PRAYER.

He enables us to recognise God as our Father who is more than willing to hear what we have to say. He wants us to talk to Him and with Him. “Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father” (Galatians 4:6). It’s a great word “Abba”; so full of intimacy and real relationship; a family word. Once, when lying sunbathing on an Israeli beach, I became aware of a wee boy jumping on and off a lie-low bed in the water. The sheer delight on his face when he gained his father’s attention and knew he was watching was expressed repeatedly as he shouted to his dad, “Abba, abba watch me!”

The welcoming Fatherhood of God is all the stimulus we need to begin to pray. It may be a simplistic illustration, but has it ever struck you that Abba is one of very few words where you don’t need teeth to utter it? Think of a baby, helpless and dependent, but able at a very basic level to communicate its needs to the doting parent; and what parent wouldn’t respond immediately to such a cry? Think of the number of times in the Psalms where the phrase occurs, “I cried unto the Lord in my distress, and He helped me” (e.g. Psalm 18:6; 120:1). By the way, if you’ve reached a stage in life where you are totally dependent on full dentures, and want to re-live a babyhood experience, you could conduct a little experiment with this word abba – in private, of course!

THE SPIRIT STIMULATES OUR DESIRE TO PRAY.

All of us go through periods where we don’t feel like praying and have what we think are justifiable excuses for not doing so: I’ve not got the time; my praying won’t make any difference; not prayer but action is needed.; prayer is only for really super spiritual people. We can always find excuses for not engaging in prayer, but none of them will wash with God who longs to have His children communicate with Him. 

Any slight inclination to pray is the work of the Spirit prompting us. So,we should express any such desires in definite, specific petition. Never be afraid to ask God directly for what you desire to have. Tell Him what you want.

Nowhere is our inadequacy in prayer shown up more than in our deep need to be taught to ask for the right things., “for we do not know what to ask for...”. But it is precisely at this juncture the Holy Spirit comes to our aid with just the help we need. He enables us to pray “according to the will of God” (v27). To our amazement we discover that what we want is in line with what He wills.

But sometimes even our desires are too deep to be expressed in words. It is then we find out that our inarticulate longings can also be the motion of the Spirit within us. The Spirit not only prays “in us” but “for us”. God who knows our hearts recognises when these difficult-to-express yearnings are implanted by the Spirit. To pray in the Spirit (Jude 20) means having Him pray in us, through us and with us.

IN ALL THIS, THE SPIRIT GETS AND GIVES THE GLORY TO JESUS.

“He shall glorify Me” predicted Jesus (John 16:14). The Spirit always points away from Himself to Christ. Of all three Persons in the Godhead, the Spirit is the most elusive. He constantly ushers us away from Himself to focus on Christ. To be Spirit-led is to be Christ-centred. Jesus is glorified in our whole life as we are completely surrendered and constantly filled. He is glorified in our prayer life as we implicitly trust and obey our Divine Instructor. In ourselves we do not know how or what to pray. The Spirit takes charge of our inarticulate yearnings and turns them into mighty instruments for the glory of Christ