Praying Pure Word [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. So these disciples that couldn't stay awake for an hour when Jesus is at His hardest time of His life, at Pentecost in Acts Chapter 2, we see they become enthralled with prayer, and Acts Chapter 2 tells us simply they devoted themselves to prayer. So something changed from it just feeling like a tremendous chore to pray even for an hour, to them becoming a Christian.

The coming of people of prayer, and what changed was the coming of the Holy Spirit. That'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 the series called Praying, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. Pastor Alan, called God Moments. And it can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

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

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

Here is Alan Wright. You ready for some good news? It may sound a little strange, but the most powerful prayer life is available to you, and it's not just praying to God, but in a very real sense, it's praying with God. And we're going to learn in coming weeks about praying, well, God's own prayers that are recorded in the Word of God. We're going to learn about five great prayers from the Bible, and you can learn them, believe them, you can say them. And in so doing, my hope is that you're going to discover more and more how powerful it is and how transformational to your prayer life it would be to pray the Scriptures. This morning, I just want to point you to two verses.

The first is in Ephesians. It's in chapter 6, and I pick up in the midst of Paul's description of the whole armor of God, in which he says at verse 18, he adds this, he says, 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. Praying at all times in the Spirit. So to Paul, the key to prayer is praying in the Spirit. And then Paul in 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 16, has this well-known verse that is, I'm going to directly relate to praying in the Spirit, and that is that all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. All Scripture is breathed out by God at all times. We're to be praying in the Spirit. The word for breath is the same word as Spirit. And so to say that all Scripture is breathed out is to say God's Spirit has filled the Scripture. That's what it means to be inspired. So the Scriptures are full of the Spirit, because they're Spirit-filled, and inspired Scripture means God's breath in it. And we're to pray in the Spirit.

And I'm going to show you the relationship of that today. Well, my nephew-in-law, Matt, teaches a Christian private school in town, and he had a hilarious story. He said one of the fifth grade teachers related to him recently, this fifth grade teacher sets up an empty chair in the room every day as a reminder that Jesus is there in the room. And so everybody knows that's Jesus' chair. And just never want to forget, you know, Jesus is here in the room with us, so it's a neat concept.

Well, one day a fifth grade girl got into sort of a tussle with another girl, and they're over towards one side of the room, and the one girl that just got inappropriate and angry or something, and then she took off and she started running across the room, and as she got to the empty chair, her foot caught on it, and she tripped. And as she was falling to the ground, she said, Jesus got me. I don't know if that's the point of the Jesus chair or not, but it made me think of another beautiful, well-known story that circulated some years ago about a dear man, older man, who was nearing the end, and he was at home.

He had become bedridden. His pastor came over to visit, and as he came to visit, there was an empty chair that was next to the bed. And the pastor said, you must have been expecting me, and I came to sit down in the chair. And the man said, well, he said, honestly, that's not why the chair is there, and he told the pastor a story. He said that some years ago, this man, his name was Joe, was talking to a friend of his, and they were talking about prayer. And Joe had said that he didn't feel like he knew how to pray.

He didn't really know what to say to God. And so his friend had said, well, why don't you try something that I do? And that is I just take an empty chair, and I sit across from it, and I imagine that Jesus is there sitting in that chair.

And then I just have a conversation with him, and I talk to him, and I listen, just the same way that you and I are talking. And so the old man told his pastor, he said, so some years ago, I started that practice, and he said, so that's really why the chair is there, is I know Jesus is here in this room with me, and I talk to him every day. And some days later, the man passed, and he went on to heaven, and his daughter reported to the pastor that her father had died peacefully. She said, but one interesting thing, she said, I noticed, is that when I found him, he was partially with his head, lying over in the chair next to the bed, which I thought was kind of strange.

Isn't that sweet? Because a conversation with God is really what prayer is all about. It's interesting that according to surveys, more people will pray this week than will go to work or drive a car. 80% of Americans say that prayer is part of their life, and the majority of people say prayer is very important to them. And yet if prayer is so important, and something that most people say that they do, why is it that you seem to talk to so few people that find prayer to be something that they feel really is powerful and satisfying? More often you talk to people, and they say they feel like their prayer life seems sort of empty, or sometimes it feels like a chore, like something they feel like they really should do, and it's very important, and yet they don't feel that it's very powerful, or they feel like they don't know what to say to God. Well, in coming weeks, we're going to learn one of the greatest things that you could ever learn about prayer, and that is that in addition to bringing our own thoughts and our heart to God, that part of what we do in prayer is that we pray with God by the power of the Holy Spirit, and one of the greatest ways that you can pray in the Spirit is to pray the Scripture. And so what we're going to look at are actual prayers in the Bible, and how you could incorporate these into your regular prayer life.

What I'm expecting is that there's going to be a lot more joy and a lot more sense of closeness to God and confidence in your prayer life as we learn about praying the Word of God. One of the things I think that problems with prayer is a lot of people have misconceptions about prayer, and there are a lot of ways that we can pray that are just not really biblical prayers at all and becomes very empty. I was thinking of five different kinds of powerless prayers, the first of which is what I'd call the lucky rabbit's foot prayer. That is kind of like the superstitious thing. You know what superstition is?

It's something that you feel like I do in order to sort of be in control, and yet it's just silly and foolish. I was thinking about superstitions, and I was looking up some of the athletes, famous athletes, some of their crazy superstitions that they have, and I did not know that Michael Jordan, throughout his NBA career as he was winning all those championships for the Chicago Bulls, that he would always superstitiously wear his University of North Carolina basketball shorts underneath his Chicago. Even the NBA championships go back eventually to Carolina. Isn't that something?

I was just saying. This is a funny one. Former LSU football coach Les Miles would eat a piece of the turf before a game. Ew. You saw Jerry Tarkanian, the former basketball coach at UNLV that would always chew on a towel. You ever seen that guy sitting there chewing on a towel? Well, when he was a younger coach, he was in a hot gym somewhere, and he kept going to the water fountain, going to the water fountain, and so finally he just drenched a towel, made it wet, so that he would just kind of suck on that towel during the game.

Well, they won the game. Well, ever since then, he sits over there and chews on a wet towel. Superstitions are just these things where you feel like I need to just make sure I do that or else something bad might happen. That's not what prayer is. It's not this thing like, oh, no, I didn't bless the food.

It might get sick now. No, that's not prayer at all. That's just superstition. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Ever been facing a problem when a well-meaning Christian friend said something like, you just need to have more faith? The problem with such an exhortation, of course, is that telling someone that they ought to have more faith doesn't actually help a person have more faith. We all want more faith, but what can we do to get more faith? In his highly acclaimed book, God Moments, Pastor Alan Wright describes one of the most important biblical pathways to building your faith, remembering God's presence in your life.

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Call us at 877-544-4860, or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. He was in a hot gym somewhere, and he kept going to the water fountain, going to the water fountain, and so finally he just drenched a towel, made it wet, so that he would just kind of suck on that towel during the game. Well, they won the game. Well, ever since then, he sits over there and chews on a wet towel. Superstitions are just these things where you feel like, I need to just make sure I do that or else something bad might happen. That's not what prayer is. It's not this thing like, oh, no, I didn't bless the food.

I might get sick now. No, it's just that's not prayer at all. That's just superstition. Then there's the soapbox prayer, and that's where we're praying with people, and we use it as an opportunity to maybe tell them something we've learned recently. Lord, just let all these people know that according to Leviticus chapter 23, beginning at verse 10, that you desire the firstfruits of our lives, and Lord, the problem is that people aren't bringing the firstfruits. I mean, just, you know, have you ever had a prayer time like that, and it turns into somebody else's Bible study, which a close cousin to that is another kind of powerless prayer, the manipulative prayer, and the manipulative prayer, don't ever do this kind of prayer. This is where the husband, you know, he and his wife are praying, Lord, just help my wife, my dear wife. Just help her be a better cook. Just help her, Jesus.

Get some decent meals around here for a change. No, that's not with you. That's just a form of manipulation. There's the me, me, me prayer, and I want to be careful about this one because I'm not suggesting to you that God turns away just because you come to Him with your desires. No, He loves to give you the desires of your heart, but there's a kind of prayer that James says you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. Years ago, Janice Joplin made famous a song that felt blasphemous, but it kind of made its point, which was her critique, I think, of materialism. Oh, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

My friends all drive Porsches. I must make amends. Remember that old... But there is a kind of prayer that is just me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, and there are two ways, really, of waking up and talking to God about your day. There's a way that says, Lord, I'm going to do some important things today, so please bless everything, and there's another way that says, Lord, you're going to do some important things today, and I'd like to be a part of it. That's the way to really experience God, Henry Black would be said. And then, finally, another kind of prayer that you hear a lot and almost sounds spiritual. It's what I'd call the worm prayer. I'm nothing, Lord, I deserve nothing. You spend about 25 minutes talking about how worthless you are, and then you finally get around to saying, and so, Lord, I know I don't deserve anything, but whatever it is, your will, that's fine with me.

Let me just say this. In shame-based homes, often there is an environment that teaches the children that what they want doesn't matter, and their voice has no place. Be seen, not heard is sometimes the motto in a shame-based home.

I mean, if it's an alcoholic home, there's not much time to think about what the children needed while trying to fix Daddy's problem, and some big percentage of people have grown up in homes where children weren't really allowed to be validated for what they want, but see, as a father, I love to give good gifts to my children. When their kids were little, I'd take them out for ice cream, and I'd like to know what do they want. Is it you want to have mint chocolate chip, or would you like to have s'mores flavored ice cream?

Would you like to have what kind? Why? Because it matters to me. That's part of the way a good father thinks, and you must understand God's like that, and there's a part of prayer in which we acknowledge that we don't deserve good things from God. We don't come to Him with an entitlement mentality, but we don't come with this sense that I don't matter. That doesn't honor God, and we don't come to Him with a sense of I couldn't expect that you would do something for me because that's utterly inconsistent with the actual promise of God that He's able to do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond anything you could ask. So the bigger model of prayer is that there's something big that God puts into your heart the way you talk to God. So there's a lot of ways that prayer is ineffective, and those are some of them. I can make light of that, but I think that it hints at at least some of the problems we have in prayer, and I think the key to a powerful, joyful, and effective prayer life is highlighted by Paul when he says at all times pray in the Spirit. Paul is a man of prayer, and Paul you can see throughout the New Testament praying for the churches, and in fact, we're going to be learning from some of Paul's prayers, but what does he mean when he says to pray in the Spirit? Some traditions have said that this only refers to praying according to the spiritual gift of tongues, but I think that there are many ways of praying in the Spirit, which means to pray in connection with God's own Spirit. It means to pray in the empowerment and direction of God's own Spirit, and one of the most beautiful ways that you can pray in the Spirit is to learn to pray God's Word back to him, and I'll try to explain that. When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he was at this time of tremendous agony, he asked his disciples if they would stay awake and pray with him.

Would you watch with me? Because his soul was troubled unto death, he said. He sweat blood. He was physically feeling it. His soul was so heavy under the weight of what was getting ready to happen, and the cup that he was going to have to drink, that he actually asked his disciples to pray for him, but they fell asleep, and so Jesus said to Peter, Could you not watch for one hour?

Watch and pray. And then he said, The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. So right here in this passage, we have these three words. The soul of Jesus is troubled, and then he says that the Spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. So these disciples that couldn't stay awake for an hour when Jesus is at his hardest time of his life, at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, we see they become enthralled with prayer, and Acts chapter 2 tells us simply they devoted themselves to prayer. So something changed from it just feeling like a tremendous chore to pray even for an hour to them becoming a people of prayer. What changed was the coming of the Holy Spirit. Paul said in Romans chapter 8 very clearly, Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.

Listen to this. 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. Paul says it there plainly. He says, We in and of ourselves do not know what to pray for. This is a very important part of prayer life is to come to this place saying that really my mind is too limited to even know how to really pray. Now I'm not saying I think you bring whatever desires you have like a little child does to a father.

You bring your desires. But let's understand that if we were left just on our own in the matter of prayer, then there's going to be a tremendous limit because we do not understand enough in and of our own natural thinking. This brings in a matter of theology really more about the makeup of a human being that to me is very helpful to see that we are tripartite spirit, soul, and body.

Let me just say this is a somewhat disputable matter. There are some theologians and pastors that I, Bible teachers I love that would say, No, we're bipartite. We're just soul and body. But when I look at the Scripture, I see so many references of spirit, soul, and body, and it helps me to understand so many things. And one of the things it helps me understand is what it means to pray in the Spirit and what spiritual prayer is versus just more of the mind's prayers.

And for example, 1 Thessalonians, where Paul is just blessing the Thessalonians, and he says, Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus. So he's drawing this kind of distinction between spirit, soul, and body. When Jesus says the Spirit is willing, the word willing means desiring.

It means wanting to. Here's what I believe. I believe for the born-again Christian, the Spirit within you is always wanting to pray, always wanting to worship.

Alan Wright. That's today's teaching as we kick off the series Praying Pure Word and the teaching of the same title. Alan is back in a moment with additional insight on what we've learned today for our lives and a final word. God's always been there. In every moment you narrowly escaped from danger. In every moment you were surprised by a blessing.

In every moment you just knew the direction to take. God was there. Your life is defined by countless moments of God's grace. Perhaps they've been covered by the sands of time or have just gone unnoticed in the rush of life, but your life is full of God moments. When you make a gift, we'll send you a special bundle, both Pastor Alan's heart-stirring book, God Moments, and a CD album containing all his audio messages on the subject. Make your gift today and start your spiritual treasure hunt to uncover your God moments.

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Now we are in our final days of offering this special product. Call us at 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Alan, this is good news that our Spirit, you believe, is willing to pray, and sometimes it's just tapping in to know that the power of prayer is there for us, just a breath away.

Just a breath away. And I think that it's so important, Daniel, when we know we're clearly told by Paul to pray in the Spirit, to understand that perhaps immediate and beautiful way you can pray in the Spirit is praying pure Word, because the Word of God is inspired, means it's breathed into. It means it inspires spirit in, is what that means. And so the Spirit's in every bit of the Word, and so when you pray the Word, you're praying what the Spirit has inspired, thus you're praying in the Spirit. So you ought to learn about the power of praying straight from God's Word. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching, delivered right to your email inbox, free. Find out more about these and other resources at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.