Thursday
Evening Bible Study
July
8, 2010
Prayer Cards: Write your name and
one thing you’d like prayer for regarding YOURSELF, not for someone else. Don’t swap cards yet. Ask God touch you in this area of your life.
Ask God to speak to you tonight.
Introduction
We’ve talked about who the Holy Spirit is.
He is not “the
Force”, some impersonal power, but a real person.
He is God.
We’ve talked
some about what the Holy Spirit is like, what He does.
He points to
Jesus.
He is the one
called alongside us to help (the “Paraklete”)
He leads,
guides, and teaches us.
Teaching
Prayer
In the Spirit
(Ro 8:26–27 NKJV) —26 Likewise
the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray
for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what
the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints
according to the will of God.
:26 we do not know
The real goal in prayer is not getting to God to do what we want, like He’s
some big genie. The goal in prayer is to
get us in line with God so that we learn to ask for what He’s wanting to do on
earth.
That’s our big difficulty in prayer.
We don’t often know what the right thing is to pray for.
Illustration
In his book Maverick, Ricardo
Semler tells of a lesson he learned working at Semco: “We were in yet another meeting ... when we came to the
purchase of $50,000 worth of file cabinets. Several departments had been
waiting months for the cabinets and in desperation had decided to pool their
requests. ...
“We didn’t buy a single new file cabinet that day. Instead, we decided to
stop the company for half a day and hold the First Biannual Semco File
Inspection and Clean-out ...
“Our instructions were simple: We told everyone to look inside every file folder and purge
every nonessential piece of paper ...
“I was one of Semco’s biggest file hogs, with four large cabinets and a
request for two more. After our cleanup, I trimmed down to a single cabinet,
and that was pretty much how it went throughout the company ... The cleanup
went so well that when everyone had finished, Semco auctioned off dozens of unneeded file
cabinets.” Sometimes what we think we need isn’t what we really need. When we
pray, we learn to distinguish between needs and wants.
-- Terry Fisher, Milford, Ohio. Leadership, Vol. 15, no. 4.
:26 makes
intercession – huperentugchano
– to intercede for one
This is an extra long Greek word that starts out with the word tugchano – to hit the mark; of one discharging a javelin or
arrow. Then it adds prefixes meaning “over” and “into”, and I get the picture
of some archery marksman
making the most incredible shot, threading needles and landing his arrow right
on the bullseye.
Prior to the
Gulf War of 1990, our pilots used to practice “carpet bombing”, where they
would try to hit a target by simply dropping a lot of bombs until they hit
something. But with the advent of the
“smart bomb”, that all changed. Remember
seeing footage from the Gulf War and how a single bomb was able to hit a specific
target? Show “Smart Bomb” video clip.
That’s what the Holy Spirit does to our prayer life. He knows exactly what needs to be prayed for
and how to get the prayer on target.
:27 He who searches
the hearts
God is the one who searches the hearts, and He knows what the Spirit is
thinking and asking for. The Spirit
knows the secret to praying for things according to God’s will.
Illustration
William Hendrickson illustrated this
ministry of the Spirit by telling of a pastor who became seriously ill. The congregation dearly loved him and prayed
earnestly, “Lord, please restore him to health.” But he died.
At the funeral, a minister who had been the pastor’s lifelong friend
spoke lovingly and with insight. He
said, “Perhaps some of you are in danger of arriving at the conclusion that the
heavenly Father does not hear prayer. He
does indeed hear prayer. But in this case two prayers (may have been) opposing each
other. You were praying, ‘O God, spare
his life, for we need him so badly.’ The
Spirit’s groaning prayer was, ‘Take him away for the congregation is leaning
too heavily on him, not upon Thee.’” The
Father answered the prayer that the Spirit offered on their behalf.
The Holy Spirit knows what God’s will
is. He knows what to pray for.
:26 groanings
What’s this mean?
It might mean
that the Spirit Himself is uttering the groanings and we are not involved at
all.
It might mean
that sometimes all we can do is “groan” in prayer. We may not know the words to say, but the
Spirit knows how to take the groanings and turn them into something that God
will respond to.
It might
involve the gift of tongues.
The gift of tongues is an ability that the Holy Spirit can
give where you speak in a language you’ve never learned.
It is words that are addressed to God, like prayer, and
may involve praise to God or intercession for others.
When used publicly, it is supposed to be accompanied by
the gift of “interpretation of tongues”.
When there is no interpretation available, then the person speaking in
tongues is to speak quietly to God.
On the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), the gift was used to
proclaim God’s greatness to the crowds that had gathered.
Paul speaks of tongues as a way to pray (1Cor. 14).
I think that there are times when it is appropriate to
pray in tongues and trust that the Holy Spirit is going to put the right words
together for whatever the need is…even if I don’t understand what’s being said.
I think that this can be done quietly without distracting
people from the real goal, to pray.
With the Mind
When addressing the Corinthian church on the subject of spiritual gifts,
and especially the gift of tongues, Paul talks about praying in tongues as
“praying with the Spirit”…
(1 Co 14:15–19 NKJV) —15
What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the
understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with
the understanding. 16
Otherwise, if you bless with the spirit, how will he who occupies the
place of the uninformed say “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not
understand what you say? 17
For you indeed give thanks well, but the other is not edified. 18 I
thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all; 19 yet in the church I would rather speak
five words with my
understanding, that I may teach others also, than ten thousand words in
a tongue.
Paul is saying that when the church is gathered together, that unless there
is a gift of interpretation, that the gift of tongues doesn’t help the group
gathered together.
Paul prefers in a group setting to pray “with the understanding”, to pray
with his mind. That way others can
participate in the prayer because they know what you’re praying for.
Three ways to pray with the Mind:
1. Ask for what
you want
You don’t need to be ashamed to ask God for what you want.
If you want the person healed, tell that to God.
Jesus did this:
(Mt 26:39 NKJV) He went a little farther and fell on His face, and
prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me;
nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
What was Jesus’ “will”?
He struggled with His upcoming death.
But notice that Jesus also asked for God’s will.
Often when praying for someone who is sick, I will pray,
“I would like to ask…”
2. Pray Scripture
You will find that there are great promises and great prayers in the
Scriptures.
It’s a good thing to know God’s promises.
The Spirit might simply bring the principle to mind as you pray.
From time to time I like to simply copy one of Paul’s prayers. You will find them in the early parts of his
letters. Like:
(Col 1:9–12 NKJV) —9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease
to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His
will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of
the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing
in the knowledge of God; 11
strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all
patience and longsuffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has
qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.
We were listening to a study by Brian and Cheryl Broderson
on marriage, and Cheryl (the daughter of Chuck and Kay Smith) shared that her
mother prays this for her father every morning.
I love it.
3. Knowledge and
prophecy
The “Word of
Knowledge” is a spiritual gift where God will tell you things that you didn’t
know before.
“Prophecy” isn’t
only about future things, but simply the spiritual gift where God gives you
words to say, to speak for God.
Sometimes God is going to whisper things in your ear that you need to be
asking for.
These may not be things that the person has asked for. They may be totally unrelated.
You may be wrong and it may be tonight’s tacos talking. But it might be the Lord wanting to reassure
the person that He knows what needs to be done.
It might be that as you are praying you will have an idea or a picture of
something that God may want to say to that person.
I think a good way to say it is like this:
“I don’t know, but I was kind of wondering if God might want to say to
you …”
Or, “As we are praying, I keep getting a picture of this in my head …”
There may be Scriptures that come to mind, not as things to pray for, but
as things to encourage the person you are praying for.
Sometimes it’s something you read just this morning in your Quiet
Time. You might think, “Well, that can’t
be God, it’s just something I read this morning, that’s why I’m thinking about
it”. But how do you know that the reason
God put you in that Scripture this morning and the prayer time tonight wasn’t
because He wanted you to share it?
We want to grow
in allowing the Spirit to direct our prayer life.
Some of this involves what we’ve already been practicing, learning to be
quiet and listen to the Spirit’s direction.
Lab
I’m going to take some of you WAY out of your comfort zone tonight.
Part of your prayer life is personal.
You ought to be cultivating a time alone with God where you grow in
prayer.
Part of your prayer life ought to be praying with and for other people.
Swap your prayer request with someone you didn’t come with.
Then find another couple and form a group of four. Introduce yourselves.
Those of you who come regularly to Sunday nights, spread yourselves in the
various groups.
Take one person’s prayer request at a time.
If the person is open to it, let them sit in the center of your group and
lay hands on them. They do not have to
have hands laid on them.
Share the request. If open to it,
lay hands on the person.
(1-2 min.) Take a minute to wait first.
Listen for ideas, scriptures, things to pray for.
(3-4 min.) Have the prayer partner start first and pray for the request.
You don’t have to pray long prayers.
It would be good if the other two also pray briefly as well.
Don’t worry if you run out of things to pray for. Be okay with silence.
If you pray in tongues, do it quietly.
I’ll close in prayer and we’ll repeat the same process with the next
person.