Why Wouldn't Everyone Want to Pray in the Spirit? [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Allen Wright. Peter realized what was happening. He stood up and he announced that Jesus Christ had risen from the grave because he knew the glory of the Gospel.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom, because the Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing your inheritance in the saints. It's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in this series filled as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource today. It can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries.

So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Allen Wright. I want to turn you to Mark chapter 14, and then we're going to go to Romans chapter 8. At least about 80% of Americans when surveyed say that they pray, that they'll pray this week or they've prayed this week. But very few people report that they find that their prayer life is energized and feels effective and that they really enjoy praying. So in other words, prayer is something that everybody thinks that they ought to do, but not that many people really enjoy praying.

And I think it has to do with whether we are praying in connection with the Holy Spirit. This is Mark chapter 14 and verse 32. They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, sit here while I pray. He took Peter, James, and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled.

My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. He said to them, stay here and keep watch. Going a little further, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. Abba, Father, he said, everything is possible for you.

Take this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. Simon, he said to Peter, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?

Watch and pray so that you'll not fall into temptation. The Spirit is willing, but the body is weak. Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. When he came back, he again found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.

Returning the third time, he said to them, are you still sleeping and resting enough? The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go.

Here comes my betrayer. Before we go to Romans chapter 8, isn't it amazing that the disciples had so much trouble being able to keep watch, pray, or even just stay awake in Jesus' hour of deepest need? I don't remember any other place in Scripture where Jesus really made a personal request for any need that he had in his life to the disciples. You never see Jesus coming up to the disciples and saying, I'm a little short on cash right now, could I borrow a few bucks? You never see Jesus coming to the disciples and saying, this storm is pretty scary, could you guys comfort me? You never see Jesus saying, I'm feeling really lonely and I just need you guys to hang out with me right now. He was fully God and fully human, so he had human needs, but we don't see those kind of things recorded, but here in a very poignant way, Jesus has asked for something.

He said, I'm going to go over there and I'm going to sweat blood. What I'd like you guys to do is stay awake and maybe pray for a little bit. And they couldn't do it.

I mean, that's just unbelievable, isn't it? I mean, Jesus, who had been teaching them for three years, they watched all these miracles and he's coming to his hour of need and he finally asks something of them, would you guys stay awake, at least with me? And they couldn't do it, much less pray any powerful, effective intercession on behalf of the Messiah who was about to be arrested, then flogged, beaten, and crucified. And yet, this same group that couldn't stay awake, much less pray for an hour, once the Holy Spirit had come, this group became a group that loved to pray. And Acts chapter 2 says, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. The mark of the early church was they were devoted to prayer.

Acts chapter 6, where they find the spiritual leaders of the church, they're so busy, they need to get help. They said, we want to give our attention to prayer and to the ministry of the word. They went from not being able to even stay awake for an hour when Jesus needed the most, to becoming a people that were looking for a way to free up their schedule so they could pray more.

What had changed? What had changed was the coming of the Holy Spirit. Romans chapter 8. Romans 8, verse 22.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we eagerly, as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all.

Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. 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.

We do not know what we ought to pray for. Luke's gospel says of the disciples at Gethsemane, not just that they were, their eyes were heavy. He has one more phrase to explain it. He said they were exhausted because of sorrow. They were confused. Jesus had been explaining to them in many different ways that the Son of Man would be handed over to authorities and he would be crucified, dead and buried, that he would be raised from the grave. But there was a veil over their understanding and they didn't understand this fully. And so they were confused, but they knew that something was drastically changing from what they'd hoped for, which was Jesus to set up some kind of political reign, but not this. And now they see their leader in such pain in his soul and they know that things are ominous, that this is a dark day. They know that.

And they don't know what to do with it. And they're sorrowful because they feel everything slipping away from them and they're exhausted by their sorrow. The soul gets discouraged and when the soul gets discouraged, we are exhausted by our discouragement.

It's why one of the number one marks of depression is either we sleep all the time or we're just in an exhausted sleeplessness. Because something happens when the soul gets despondent. We don't know what to do. We don't know how to pray. We don't know what to say. We don't know how to get ourselves out of it.

We're lost in that. And that's what's happening with these disciples. They're exhausted by their sorrow and so they can't pray. They don't know how to pray. They don't know what to pray. They don't know what to do.

They just fall asleep. And Paul is explaining that the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer does a remarkable thing when it comes to prayer. The Holy Spirit helps us. Remember, he is called by Jesus, the advocate or the helper. He loves to help you. The Holy Spirit loves to help you and he wants to help you to pray.

That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. It's a great idea to start each day with a dose of good news and we'd like to help. In James five, we're given these jaw dropping words. Elijah was as human as we are.

And yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years. Elijah, the man whose prayer called down fire on a water drenched altar, defeating 450 wicked prophets and whose intercession revived a widow's deceased son was just like us, an ordinary man who was used by God for the extraordinary. God's word is clear. If the Lord could use Elijah miraculously, he could also do wonders in and through you. If you yearn to see more of God's power in your life, you'll love Pastor Alan's devotional journal, Everyday Miracles. This beautiful spiral bound book is the perfect tool to get you into the word and to build your faith day by day. When you make a gift this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's new devotional journal, Everyday Miracles as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Also free digital access to all the Elijah messages currently airing. So please make your gift today and start looking for miracles all around you. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. He helps us when we're weak. Here's the problem for the disciples and a problem for all of us. If you're despondent, discouraged and confused, you have a hard time praying. But when is it that you most need to pray? When you're despondent, confused and discouraged.

So we need a helper. And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. It's okay that your soul is despondent, confused and not certain what to do.

You have the Holy Spirit to help you in that weakness. Because we don't know how we ought to pray. We don't know what we ought to pray for. What were the disciples supposed to say to God?

They could come and say, well God just protect him that he won't get arrested. Well that wasn't even God's will. They could say don't let the cross come. No, the cross needed to come.

They didn't even know what to say. So they couldn't pray. But the Holy Spirit does know what we ought to pray. And listen to this, the Spirit himself intercedes for us.

He intercedes for us with groans that words can't express. He is our advocate and the Holy Spirit is in us and with us, praying through us, for us and in partnership with us. The key to an energetic, effective, joyful, powerful, moving prayer life is to learn what it means when Jude chapter one says build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. And Ephesians chapter six where Paul comes to the kind of climax of describing the spiritual armor which we are favored with and that we can figuratively wear every day and he comes towards the conclusion in Ephesians six and says take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

It sounds like what Paul is describing in Ephesians six is the exact opposite of what happened to the disciples at Gethsemane. They didn't know how to pray but now he says pray in the Spirit on all the occasions and keep alert and keep on praying for the saints. Praying in the Spirit. Now in order to go at what this means for us I want to just say first the exciting thing is that there are diverse ways to pray in the Spirit. And I'm going to share some about what I think the Spirit does in the process of our prayer life. And so it may be that at any moment in our life that the Holy Spirit may be interacting with us in our prayer life in different ways.

It may be that the number of things I described today that you have experienced all of these or experienced these regularly. The good news is that there is no one way that you pray in the Spirit. And this is not a technique that we're going to talk about.

It's a relationship that we're talking about. But to understand prayer in the Spirit. I think it is first necessary to understand what we mean by the Spirit himself the Holy Spirit and what do we mean by our own spirit.

While there are some theologians and biblical scholars that would point to the human being as soul and body, kind of a two part nature, most would say and I think biblically more accurately that we are spirit, soul and body. Which goes far to explain what it means to be walking in the Spirit or be in communion with the Holy Spirit. You have a good example of spirit, soul and body, three different words used closely connected with one another in the text I read today in Mark 14. Because Jesus says in verse 34 of Mark 14, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.

That word suke, it would look like the word psyche from which we get words like psychology. The soul is overwhelmed. The soul can be overwhelmed. Jesus' own soul was overwhelmed. If your soul ever gets downcast or you get overwhelmed with sorrow, it does not mean that you are unfaithful, it means you are human. It was not a sin that Jesus' soul had become overwhelmed. The flesh, he said, is weak. The flesh, the body itself with its desire to get sleep, its desire for food, all of these things that makes the body weak. The soul can be overwhelmed.

The body is weak. But he says this of the Spirit, the Spirit is willing. The word willing is probably not the best translation because we tend to use the word like, you know, will you mow the lawn? Well, I don't want to but I'm willing to do it. Will you serve in the nursery?

Well, I'm willing to. That's not what this word means. You might better translate it as ready or predisposed.

You could even translate as desiring. What he's saying is that while your flesh, while the soul can be overwhelmed with sorrow, the body is weak and given to, susceptible to all of the things the body needs, the Spirit is ready. The Spirit is ready to pray. The Spirit is ready to worship. The Spirit is ready to give. The Spirit is ready to love.

The Spirit is predisposed to all of these things. But the disciples, before they have been filled with the Holy Spirit, before they know what it means to walk in the Spirit, they do not have a connection to what Jesus is even talking about. Here's what happens in the amazing miracle of coming to Christ. Some people have lived a life of incredible rebellion and sin and then they have a moment in which they see that Jesus died for them. They believe it in their heart. They announce it with their mouth and they are born anew and a dramatic change immediately happens.

Other people never have a dramatic moment like that. They may even be grown up in nurture and admonition of the Lord, but for all people there is a time in which a miracle takes place, in which an incredible transfer, a transaction is enacted, in which when we place our confidence of our hearts by our belief in Jesus Christ that He died for us and we accept that His death on the cross has paid the penalty for our sin and that therefore we can be received by God in fellowship with Him, when we accept that, here's what the Bible teaches. A miracle takes place that is so wonderful that it is like we were dead in our sins and we are now made alive in Jesus Christ. Now when Paul talks about being dead, he's not saying that our body was dead. Of course our body wasn't dead and he's not saying that the soul, our suke, was dead.

What is he speaking of? He's saying that spiritually we were so shut off from God there was no spiritual connection between us and God. There is an awareness available of God in the cosmos but the separation that sin brought was a great chasm so complete that our distance from God is like we're dead to God. And by the miracle of grace what happens is we are made alive again. It is like a resurrection, it is like a new birth, whatever you want to call it, but you become spiritually alive so that the fundamental difference is that now you are spiritually alive and connected to God and an intimate, eternal connection that never can end. Some people get really excited about that and decide to spend their lives sowing into the Spirit because they find that that connection with God is the greatest thing in all of life and nothing else matters compared to that.

And those people that learn and want to cultivate that life of communion with the Holy Spirit are people who discover that the more that they are surrendered to the Spirit, the more He helps us, that He is there. This beautiful spiral bound book is the perfect tool to get you into the Word and to build your faith day by day. When you make a gift this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's new devotional journal, Everyday Miracles, as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Also free digital access to all the Elijah messages currently airing. So please make your gift today and start looking for miracles all around you. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Alan, I do see this as good news. Jesus left us, the Holy Spirit, the helper, and praying in the Spirit is something that we, well, as you've asked here, why wouldn't everyone want to pray in the Spirit? I think sometimes there's been confusion that people have, in some theological circles, have said that praying in the Spirit refers only to the ministry gift or the spiritual gift of praying in tongues. And I think they're just, as good as that gift is, I think it's very important to understand there are many ways of praying in the Spirit because not everybody has that one particular spiritual gift. And that's what we're learning about in today's message.

And in fact, our special product of the month, Daniel, is all about that. Many different ways that we can pray with power, pray in the Spirit. But we don't know how to pray as we ought. If we are left to our own devices, we're going to pray too shallow a prayer. We're going to pray too worldly of a prayer. We're not going to be in touch. But God has a way of praying through us by His Spirit. That's what we're learning about. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.