Prayer & the Holy Spirit…Pathway to Power Romans 8:26-27
Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason - June 15, 2003
This morning we are going to jump right into the deep end of the pool as we complete our series on prayer. I hope you can swim!
An unknown Confederate Soldier wrote this over 138 years ago and it is profound in its spiritual insight:
I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked God for health that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for--but everything I had hoped for...
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am among all men most richly blessed.
There are three components that need to come together in our lives if we would be dynamically powerful Christians:
1. The Word of God
2. The Spirit of God dwelling within us and filling or controlling us completely
3. Faith – we have to believe it for it to make a difference in our lives.
A walk in the Spirit will of necessity be a walk in accordance with the Word the Spirit has inspired. The parallel between Eph 5:18-21 and Col 3:15-17 is significant. The same results are said to flow from being filled with the Spirit in the first cast, and being filled with the Word in the second. To remain filled with the Spirit, and thus enjoy His continuing sanctifying work, will mean continuing to be filled with the Word. The relationship is obvious. J.O. Sanders, Enjoying Intimacy with God, Moody, p. 91.
We might ask ourselves what the connection is between prayer, effective prayer and the Holy Spirit. Perhaps a two minute primer on the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian would be appropriate at this point:
The Holy Spirit is given to every child of God in the instant he or she believes in Jesus and accepts Him as Savior and Lord. Paul tells us in Romans 8:9 “If any one does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.” It is clear from Paul’s teaching here that the Holy Spirit comes to live or dwell within the believer. That is a one time experience that all true Christians have.
At the same time, the Apostle Paul can teach us that while we are not to “…get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:18-19). That filling with the Holy Spirit is to be a continuous action of being filled with the Spirit. The issue at this point is that of having our lives completely under the control of the Holy Spirit.
It is told of Dwight L. Moody as he was to going to have an evangelistic campaign in England. An elderly pastor protested, "Why do we need this 'Mr. Moody'? He's uneducated, inexperienced, etc. Who does he think he is anyway? Does he think he has a monopoly on the Holy Spirit?" A younger, wiser pastor rose and responded, "No, but the Holy Spirit has a monopoly on Mr. Moody." Source Unknown.
The Holy Spirit can work only when the child of God yields to Him…it is an issue of who is going to control our lives. One of two things will take place, we will insist on controlling our life or we will allow God to have the reigns of control. As we yield and wait and obey the leading of the Holy Spirit…God works in him everything that is pleasing in God’s sight.
Romans 8:26-27 makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is “A Spirit of Prayer.”
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”
In Zachariah 12:10 the Holy Spirit is promised as a “Spirit of grace and of supplications.”
When it comes to prayer…our power in prayer is a measure of the Spirit’s work in us. And effective prayer depends on the indwelling, filling to overflowing presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
If you want to be a powerful pray-er there are three lessons you must learn about how Prayer and the Holy Spirit are related.
Lesson No. 1: Believe that the Holy Spirit dwells within you.
Ephesians 1:13 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.”
The truth is that every true Christian has the Holy Spirit living within him. This is the clear statement of the Apostle Paul as we have seen and it is the promise of God (Galatians 3:14). Part of the reason for his living within us is that we might be enabled to pray in a manner and in the measure that God desires of us.
Lesson No. 2: We must be careful not to grieve the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 4:30 gives us this admonition: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”
We are not to cause the Spirit of Christ deep sorrow by how we live. We are not to make Him sad or to burden Him with our lives.
It is sin and disobedience that will grieve Him.
But we can live in such a way that we won’t grieve Him. He makes it possible for us to be obedient. We can because He will provide us with the love, faith and the power of obedience we need by revealing Christ within us.
He also prays for us…intercedes for us so that when we are in those situations in which we just can’t find the words to pray and we feel cold and powerless, all we have to do is to believe that He prays for us. Be quiet before God and give Him time…trust Him. This is the positive side of not grieving the Holy Spirit. When we trust Him…we please Him and the result will be that we will have exactly what we need when we need it.
Lesson No. 3: Be filled with the Spirit Ephesians 5:18.
We have seen how the Holy Spirit comes to live within us and we have hinted at the necessity of yielding our lives to the Holy Spirit. The next thing we need to do is to allow the Spirit of Christ to completely control our lives. We need to yield to Him.
To get full of the Spirit begins with and emptying out.
The filling up with the Holy Spirit of necessity involves emptying our lives of our plans, our will, our goals, our ideas, our whatever!
Give him control of your life and allow him to fill every area of your life.
The initial experience of this is often called the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. It is an experience in which you can know that you have had in which the Spirit of Christ fills you to overflowing. The result of this spiritual experience is that we receive His power for ministry to enable us to do the work God has called us to.
When you go the gas station and lift the pump handle out of the cradle, you see the little notice not to top off your tank after the automatic shutoff mechanism has worked. It might be hazardous to your health the notice says.
Well, getting Baptized with the Holy Spirit and topping off your tank each and every day can be hazardous to your spiritual health too! The old powerlessness will be gone and the new power of the Holy Spirit will be obvious. The hazard comes in the fact that the old ways will be replaced by new and more powerful ones. Your family and friends will think you have become a fanatic and something akin to “spiritual halitosis” sets in. But the one who matters, the Holy Spirit, will be pleased at His new found freedom to do his work in your life as never before – if you will trust Him with your life.
Once we have had that experience, we need to continually keep full of the Spirit by being continually filled with the Spirit. Paul tells us here: “Be being filled with the Spirit…” It is a continual necessity that we have to continually be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Trust Him.
Yield your life to Him.
Allow Him to take over the controls of your life. And watch out for what happens in your ministry and your prayer life. The fullness of the Spirit of Christ is always something we accept by faith. As we take the steps to yield our lives to His control we will receive the power to serve Christ and that includes power in prayer.
Power in prayer is available to us:
- if we believe it.
- If we will receive it.
- If we will prayerfully seek to determine how God is working in a situation or in someone’s life.
Remember: It is to the Father we pray and from whom we expect an answer.
It is in the merit and the name of the Son of God, in the abiding or living in Him and He in us that we trust we will be heard.
It is through Him (the Son of God) that we have access by one Spirit to the Father. He can and will teach us to pray if we will let him.
Therefore, when we pray our prayer must be to the Father
- through the Son
- And by the Holy Spirit.
- Power in prayer comes when the Holy Spirit freely has control over our lives.
Everything in prayer depends on our trusting the Holy Spirit to do His work in us, once we have yielded our lives to Him, to His leading, to His filling, and then to depend entirely on Him.
It is then…at that point…that we can pray in power as the Father intends for us to pray.
God never denied that soul anything that went as far as heaven to ask for it. ~ John Trapp.
-- Dennis Gleason
