Privilege of Prayer

Introduction: The Enemies of the Word and the Need for God's Grace

0:04 The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, January 24th, 1993, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. That wonderful hymn we have just sung should be familiar to the kids from Trinity Christian School. You memorized it last year, didn't you? As I have the privilege of giving a series of consecutive expositions on the parable of the sower to the children in the school.

0:33 But it's a very powerful reminder that wherever the word of God is preached, its great enemies are a personal devil. According to Jesus, when the word is sown in human hearts, the devil is present and active. There is the problem of the hardness of the human heart like unto rocks in the soil. There is the problem of the cares of this world, and the lust of other people, and the things that act like thorn bushes to choke the word.

1:09 And it's God alone who, in the midst of a personal active devil, stony hearts, and thorn bushes in the human spirit, who can make our hearts into what is called good soil. Those who receive the word in a good and an honest heart bring forth and bear fruit with endurance. Apart from that, there is no saving contact with the word of God. Let us pray together that God may indeed grant that the spirit will overcome the work of the devil, the hardness of our hearts, rip out the thorn bushes of our hearts, and make them fruitful in the fruits of grace. Let us pray. Our Father, we would not be so naive as to think that because we meet in a country, a comfortable building, protected from the elements that at this time of the year would make us cold, or wet should it rain or snow. We are not so naive as to think that we are thereby protected from those things that are the true enemies of the soul.

2:29 And we therefore would cry to you that you would thwart the purposes of the devil to snatch away the seed of the world, that you would break up every hard, rocky part of our hearts, that you would tear out the thorn bushes of the cares of this world, the lust for things, and all that would hinder your word from taking deep root in our own souls. And may the word of God preached and taught this morning find good soil, and bring forth fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. Hear us, O God, we plead, for our good and for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.

The Israelites' Ingratitude for Manna: A Warning Against Despising God's Means

3:27 Would you turn with me, please, this morning to the eleventh chapter of the book of Numbers.

3:35 Numbers chapter eleven. This section of the word of God contains a record, a selective, a selective history of the wilderness wanderings of the people of God. And in the midst of that record we read in Deuteronomy eleven and verse four the following incident. And the mixed multitude that was among them lusted exceedingly.

4:09 And the children of Israel also wept again and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember. We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt for naught. The cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic.

4:27 But now our soul is dried away. There is nothing at all save this manna to look upon. And the manna was like coriander seed. And the appearance thereof is the appearance of bdellium.

4:44 The people went about and gathered it and ground it in mills or beat it in mortars and boiled it in pots and made cakes of it. And the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil. And when the dew fell from the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it or with it.

5:09 This incident recorded in Numbers eleven is surely one of the most shocking and astounding examples of ingratitude. of ingratitude. of ingratitude. of ingratitude.

5:20 of ingratitude and fickleness to be found anywhere in the word of God. Manna was the divinely provided perpetual miracle of God's provision for the sustenance of the children of Israel in their wilderness wanderings. Yet in the face of this perpetual miracle by which they were sustained through this foolishness, through this foolishness, through this foolishness, through this foolishness, through this foolishness, from heaven they grew weary of God's provision and lusted for other provisions, even the fish, the melons, the cucumbers, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic of Egypt. And they had a very selective memory as well as a very selective forgettery. For they said they had all of these other things for naught, when in reality, the oppressive burden of their taskmasters was so great that it was their crescendo of crying to God for deliverance that finally brought God to bring that deliverance through the instrumentality of Moses.

No Substitutes for Divinely Appointed Means of Grace: The Primacy of Prayer

6:44 Now, why have I turned to this incident on the threshold of today's ministry? Well, for the simple reason that as we continue to consider the ninth tenet, or affirmation, in the Manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church, we are presently focusing in that tenet upon the fact that we are determined to maintain a balanced Book of the New Testament wings – New Testament doctrine of the Christian life – and to procedure and framework and apply that framework of New Testament life for the perfectönism of God. And with respect to that definition, I let� go do the following three rules manager relates. Well, one of the first one is that there is no exception in a lump sum, soabeason.

7:21 In the matter of a balanced New Testament doctrine of the Christian life, we have thus far covered four major principles. We have seen that there is no one master key to living the Christian life. We have seen that there is no escape from tension and conflict in living the Christian life. Further, we have discovered that there is no cancellation of any of the faculties of our redeemed humanity in living the Christian life, and that there is no post-conversion crisis experience, either promised or commanded, as essential to living the Christian life.

8:05 Now we have begun a study of the fifth of these major principles that constitute. A balanced New Testament doctrine of the Christian life, namely, that there are no effective substitutes for the divinely appointed means of grace in living the Christian life. In our study two Lord's Days ago, I sought to explain the words of that principle. By the divinely appointed means of grace, I am referring to...

8:42 To those activities, disciplines, and relationships which God has ordained to be the means of nurturing spiritual life. In the imagery and analogy of the passage in Numbers, the divinely appointed means of grace are God's manna from heaven.

9:09 And I'm asserting that there are no effective substitutes for... For those divinely appointed means of grace.

9:18 That is, if in arrogance or willful ignorance we invent our own means to sustain spiritual life, we concoct our own substitutes for God's manna, we will star in the Christian life, no matter how attractive our substitutes may appear, behind the display glass in our carnally made belly, for substitutes for God's means. I am saying, furthermore, if in presumption we think we can sustain divine life without the use of means, we will shrivel and starve and be sickly and malnourished. And this is precisely what I mean...

10:14 Only when I say there are active substitutes for the divinely appointed means of grace in living the Christian life. We then noted from the scriptures that these means could be conveniently arranged or can be conveniently arranged into two major categories, the individual or private means of grace, and then the corporate or the social means of grace. And under that first heading of the individual or private means of grace, none is more important than the habit and disposition of personal prayer. By the word habit of personal prayer, I mean those specific times when we do what Jesus said every one of his followers will do. When you pray, enter into your closet and shut the door. And pray to thy Father in secret.

11:20 I am referring to specific seasons in the day and in the course of our ordinary schedule when we give ourselves in a concentrated, exclusive way to this means of holding communion with God called in scripture prayer. But I'm also referring to the disposition of prayer, seeking to express what Paul had...

11:49 When he said, pray without ceasing. That is, living in such a way that conscious of my dependence upon God, of God's willingness to hear the cry of the heart at any time and in all circumstances, I have the kind of experience that Nehemiah had when in the midst of fulfilling his duties, he said, I prayed to the Lord and I said unto the king, now as we began to address this principle, we had time only to consider prayer as the primary individual or private means of grace in terms of prayer habit and disposition being the believers duty. And we establish that duty on a three fold foundation. Christ and his apostles commanded believers, believers to pray. Christ and his inspired penmen expect us to pray, and Christ as our example demands that we pray. I conclude this review by giving you a choice, what I believe to be a choice

13:08 quote from a relatively recently published book by Donald Whitney entitled Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, and after opening up the duty of prayer, Mr. Whitney writes, this means too little, too many responsibilities, too many kids, too much work, too little experience, etc. do not exempt us from the expectation to pray. God is to be devoted to pray and to pray without. In other words, he of every state of the earth is to be devoted to pray and to pray without. In other words, he of every state of the earth is to be devoted to pray and to pray without. The Christian established both the habit and the disposition of prayer. He goes on to write,

14:06 a praying man as well as reformer of the church, Martin Luther expressed God's expectation of prayer this way, as it is the business of tailors to make clothes and of cobblers to mend shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray. What is a cobbler who mends bodies of ten who does not pray is but a Christian in name only. God gives birth to no dumb. They all have a voice. But now this morning I want us to move from the consideration

Prayer as the Believer's Privilege: Secured by Christ's Past Work

15:08 of the duty of prayer to the consideration of prayer's habit and disposition being the believer's privilege. You see the progression? In our previous study, focusing on the fact that there are no effective substitutes for the divinely appointed means of grace, honing in on this first of the private means of grace, that of the habit and the disposition of prayer, we considered that prayer's habit and disposition is the believer's duty. And we looked at the three categories of evidence that it is our duty. Now this morning we consider prayer as the duty of prayer. We consider prayer as the duty of prayer. We consider prayer as habit and disposition being the believer's privilege. All of the true children

16:07 of God desire to know and in the strength of God to perform the duties laid upon them by their God. This is true because in the language of Psalm 40 and verse 8, every true Christian can say, I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea, thy law is within my heart. For as Jesus expressed it in John 14, 21, he that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. All true Christians, to one degree or another, love Christ. And the channel cut by their love to Christ is obedience to the precepts of Christ. Our Lord said in Matthew 7, 21, not everyone who says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that is doing the will of my Father. And he that is doing the will of my Father, which is in heaven. And we have seen that prayer is unmistakably a clearly revealed, biblically based, and a Christian wants to know as divinely. However, God has

17:24 not only set before us the primary means of grace as a duty, but also as an unspeakable and wonderful privilege. And as we seek to be disciplined, consistent, and growing in our use of this means of grace, it will be helpful to us not only to see private, secret prayer and disposition as an element of our duty, but also to see it in its true light as an unspeakably wonderful privilege. And I want to establish the fact that it is our privilege on a four-fold scale. The work of Christ, the privilege of prayer. Consider with me first of all Hebrews chapter 10 as pointing primarily to the work of Christ for us in the past, and the work of Christ for us in the future. And I want to establish the fact that it is our privilege on a four-fold The work of Christ, the privilege of prayer. Consider with me first of all Hebrews chapter

18:52 And its relationship to the privilege of prayer. Hebrews chapter 10, beginning with verse 19 and reading to the first part of verse 22. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, and having a great priest over the house of God, let us draw the revelation of God.

19:40 The language is not limited to the discipline and to the habit and disposition of prayer. It is much broader in its significance. Surely it includes that blessed privilege of prayer. Now, as we draw near, what is it that will give us confidence that we shall be received?

20:09 What is it that is to form, as it were, the marble stairs upon which we ascend with confidence into the more immediate presence of God, which is our privilege in prayer? Notice what the text tells us. There is something that we must...

20:31 We must constantly have reference to in our minds and hearts as an object of present faith. Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place of Jesus, in which he dedicated for us a new and living way through the veil to say...

21:01 The passage obviously drips with old covenant imagery, and allusion, and analogy.

21:17 It drips with old covenant realities into their new covenant expression and glorious fulfillment. In the old covenant, it was only those who would draw near to the more immediate presence of God in the temple and tabernacle, as it was the high priest only once a year who would go within that second veil. Into the immediate presence of the Shekinah glory on behalf of the people, and that only with blood in God's appointed way. So this passage says for us as the people of God, we are privileged to come with boldness into the place of God's more immediate presence because Christ has shed his blood. Having boldness to enter into the holy place by...

22:25 And then he says that that entrance is called the way dedicated for us a new and living way. Was it made? It was made with respect to that which is called the veil, that is to say, his flesh. He comes through the veil that has not been hung and around which we must pass.

22:56 But the veil that was from top to bottom and we pass and we are told is in the reading that the flesh we have been given this privilege of access by this new and living to the very immediate presence of the living God. It was our Lord's agonizing death, the vying of the Son of God, the rending of his flesh, which was the...

23:36 The sound of his shout, it is finished. And God taking his finger and splitting that veil in the temple from top to bottom that constitutes God's open invitation. All who will come through the rent flesh of my Son are welcome through the rent veil into my immediate presence. And so it is the work of Christ passed for believers.

24:06 And so it is the work of Christ passed for believers. That has secured the privilege of prayer. The invitation to draw near. Verse 22, let us draw near with a true heart.

24:20 Dear ones, that privilege was purchased at a tremendous price. That privilege was purchased at the price of the bloodletting of the Son of God, the rending of his flesh in the cruel, shameful death. Of the cross. Hence our drawing nearness to enter God's special presence rests down upon Christ's once for all of atonement.

Prayer as the Believer's Privilege: Secured by Christ's Present Work

24:52 But then turn to Hebrews chapter 4.

24:57 We shall see that that privilege rests not only upon Christ's past work, his once for all work of atonement, but upon his present work for us. Hebrews 4 and verse 14. Having then a great high priest who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us then, therefore, draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. Here's the language again of drawing near. The language of boldness.

26:03 Let us draw near with boldness. And here, in particular, prayer is more dominantly brought forward. For we are drawing near with boldness, unto the throne of grace, to receive and to find. To receive grace, to receive mercy, that is the pity of God suited to us in our present state of need.

26:32 That's what mercy is. When men in the days of our Lord's earthly pilgrimage cried out, Son of David, have mercy, what were they asking for? They were asking for pity. We join to action appropriate to their present need.

26:50 If it were a blind man, have mercy meant, Lord Jesus, take pity upon me in my blindness and give me my sight. If it were someone who was distraught over a sick child and said, have mercy, what they meant was, Lord, take pity upon my sick child and heal them at the point of their need. So we draw near to the throne of grace to receive, mercy and find grace, divine provision to help us in time of need. But now, what does the therefore refer to?

27:27 Let us therefore draw near. What is it that will embolden us so to draw near, to receive mercy and to find grace in the discipline of prayer? In the maintenance of the habit and the disposition, of prayer. It is the reality of having a present high priest active and ministering for us at the right hand of God.

27:57 Having then a great high priest who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession for we have present tense. We have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. What's the picture? The picture is this, that when we draw near, we are to draw near in the confidence that we have a high priest in heaven at the right hand of God who has carried with him into heaven the full reservoir of all of his stout experiences, while making his sojourning here on earth, all that was peculiar to the period of his humiliation, living in utter dependence upon the Father and manifesting it by his own life of prayer, subject to the temptations of the devil, subject to the misunderstanding, to the slander, to the horrible and wretched accusations of being an illiterate, to the illegitimate child, of being an imposter and being a blasphemer, knowing what it was to be weary,

29:23 weary physically, weary emotionally, knowing what it was to be disappointed with the dullness of his disciples and with the apostasy of those who followed him when he was feeding the multitudes and was caring for their physical needs, but when he began to speak of his true mission as bread of life, and bread sent down from heaven, and eating his flesh and drinking his blood, the multitudes go back and walk with him no more until he turns to the handful left and says, will you also go away? Touched with the feeling of our infirmities, he is carried into heaven, the reservoir of all of that felt experience in this state of humiliation and weakness, and then he is in his heart, at the right hand of the Father. Therefore, when I come to obtain mercy, there is no category of need which I have with which he cannot empathize. You know what it's like when you're unburdening yourself to someone and you wonder, are they really going to understand? And they stretch out their hand and they put their hand on your shoulder and they say to you, I've been there.

30:41 Say no more. I know.

30:46 Oh, how it's like it unclogs the emotional, empathetic plug. When they look you in the eye and they say, I've been there.

30:58 My dear brother or sister, every time you come to your Savior and you're coming with felt weakness and infirmity, either growing out of your own struggles with sin, your own struggles with temptations from the devil, disappointments about yourself or others, grief over the wretchedness of the world, that makes itself increasingly drunk with a wine of its own ignorance. When you come, the Lord Jesus puts his hand on your shoulder and says, I know. I've been there. I know.

31:40 I've been there. What a privilege. What a privilege. Both to draw aside in the habit of prayer and to live in the disposition of prayer knowing that this privilege was secure, not only in terms of everything connected with the once-for-all life history of Jesus of Nazareth, culminating in the violent shedding of his blood and in the rending of his flesh,

32:14 but that he ever lives to make intercession for us. His heart being an infinite heart of the incarnate God in his glorified humanity of humanity. All of his heart is toward every one of his children every time they come, as though they were the only one to whom he had to give attention. For God to give attention to ten million of his children at once is no more a strain than to give his full attention to one of them as though they were the only one in the universe.

32:53 What a privilege. What a dearly bought and dearly maintained privilege is the privilege of prayer. Think of the price paid that we may bow our knees and come boldly into the throne of grace. Think of the tireless, selfless ministry of Christ which secures our living in the disposition of prayer.

33:20 No wonder the hymn writer wrote, What a friend we have in Jesus all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to God. In prayer.

The Cost of Privilege and Our Indifference to Prayer

33:42 What a vivid example we have of how powerful is a motive of privilege to move people to action this past week. As most of you know, I'm sure, while President-elect and not yet inaugurated and installed as President, Mr. Clinton sent out invitations to some 2,000 ordinary citizens inviting them to be received in the White House the first day after his inauguration. The basis of that selection, it's not important to go into it, but it was a cross-section of average Americans.

34:23 And we were told on the newscast that not only did the 2,000 or so who received the special invitation and tickets to get in were found present, from sunup, lining up to go into the White House and greet the President, that many others were there with what they thought were persuasive arguments as to why they too ought to be given that privilege. The thought of going in and shaking the hand of the highest official in our country, that privilege was enough to cause several thousand people, some of whom had to pay their own way, buy their air tickets, go through the inconvenience, get days off from work. Why? They were going to have a 30-second audience with President Clinton. That was motive enough. Child of God, he did not bear any scorn of men. He did not feel the wrath of God poured out upon him.

35:27 He didn't shed his blood to enter into that position. Jesus Christ had this flesh rent. He bore the outpouring of the wrath of God. He ever lives with the reservoir of his felt empathy for us, touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

35:50 And he's given not to 2,000 but to every one of his children a standing ticket to come into his special place. Shame, shame upon us that while it doesn't cost us an airline ticket or a bus ticket, we won't push the covers off and go to bed. Rather sit and watch some banal, stupid, and at times morally defiling junk coming over the TV. And go into the immediate presence of the Lord of the universe.

36:34 What a privilege, what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Let me carry on the illustration. What do you think President Clinton would have thought if after going from ball to ball the night before, an activity upon which I'll make no comment, after about three hours sleep, he was there, the appointed hour, ready to receive the 2,000 guests? What do you think he would have thought if not a one of them showed up?

37:19 He would have been shocked. He would have been humiliated. See the point of the illustration? Let us draw near which he's constituted through his veil, that is to say, his flesh, by his own blood, having a great high priest.

37:46 Let us draw near. And Christ waits with blood sealed in him, in every child of God's pocket. What does he feel when we don't show up? What does he feel when we don't show up?

38:12 What does he feel when he finds he finds we've stood him up and followed the invitation to feed our flesh with an extra half hour of unneeded sleep, when we've substituted time with him, the time in front of the tube. Dear people of God, it should break our hearts to think of the grief we've caused to the heart of our Savior when we treat so highly purchased a privilege with such indifference so much of the time. It is the work of Christ, past and present, that secures for all believers the privilege of prayer and the acid test for me of how much I value the work of Christ, past and present. It is often found right at this point am I prepared to avail myself of that privilege at the expense of lesser things. The true assessment that I give is not the one I give when discussing prayer

39:38 as privilege theologically. But what I do, as even this morning when it was still dark and I set the alarm clock for a certain time, to get up to pray, preparation for both ministries was well in hand. I had only to copy the last part of one point for this morning's message and deliberately left it for this morning. So there wasn't work to do.

40:08 And I had occasion to get up while it was still dark and when I got into bed I looked at the clock and I said, oh good, another hour and fifteen minutes before the alarm clock goes off and you sleep with the window open so the room is always cold. And I snuggled up to my wife's back and pulled the covers up and I said, oh thank you Lord, another hour and fifteen minutes before the alarm clock goes off. And I had no sooner said that than started off when it went off and I said, oh that silly thing, I must not have said it right. So I stumbled out of the bedroom, went into the bathroom, put the light on and I said, huh, it is right.

40:43 It is that time. It has not failed me. And then the moment of truth came, everything in me to say, not a half hour more and you might be fresh with the preach, you have got three packs. Oh, was I rational.

40:58 I had another half hour in the sheets until I preached my own sermon to my heart. And I said, is the blood of Christ not worth that half an hour? Is the invitation and the presence of Christ at the right hand of the Father not worth that half an hour? And thank God the battle was won and the clock was left in the bathroom.

41:27 I have not always won that game. Why do I bring in that personal experience just that recently? Because that is where the battle lines are drawn every single day for every one of us and none of us is exempt. You look at me and say, oh, you do not understand, Pastor.

41:53 Yes, I do understand. The battle is fought now, forty years later, exactly where it was fought. When as a young Christian it meant pushing the sheets off early in the morning, to have time with God before going out to do construction work. Two years later, when as a college student working my way through college, it meant out of bed at five o'clock to sweep walks and dig around shrubs before going to breakfast and classes.

42:24 And it meant if that were so, it had to be said earlier, to have time with God. The battleground is the same to this very day. There are times when the thought of my duty does not get me, but when I think of my privilege, I am God, privileged, so dearly bought. Well, I must hasten, and I can see I am only going to get to the second paragraph.

Prayer as Privilege: Inclined and Assisted by the Holy Spirit (Adopted Status)

42:55 My fellow elders have encouraged me, brethren, I have come to the place where I am determined not to get through so many heads. I believe God is bringing us as a congregation into a crucible of intense dealings with us, for the responsibilities and privileges of future ministry. And this is a purifying time, and some of you aren't going to be able to take the heat. So be it.

43:20 I believe others, and that God will be brought to new levels of genuine spirituality. And I want you to consider with me, secondly, prayer as habit and disposition, being the believer's privilege, not only a privilege secured by the work of Christ, past and present. But secondly, the gift of the Spirit both inclines to and assists the believer in the privilege of prayer. The gift of the Spirit both inclines to and assists in the privilege of prayer. Now, as we saw in dealing with the privilege of prayer, and dealing with the principle that there is no crisis experience, post-conversion crisis experience, commanded or promised, that according to Romans 8, 9, and there are many other texts that could be used, but this is, in a sense, the great watershed text, every single believer receives the gift of the Holy Spirit in that complex of God's dealings with sinners that we call conversion. And when God turns sinners from darkness to light, from the kingdom of Satan unto God,

44:47 He converts them by His grace. He always, without exception, gives them as pure, gracious donation the gift of the Holy Spirit. And Romans 8, 9 forever establishes this truth. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so, be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.

45:14 But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. To be without the Spirit is to be without Christ, and to be without Christ is to be a non-Christian. So, we've established in previous expositions this fact clearly stated in Romans 8, 9. Now, when the Spirit is given to us among His many ministries to us and in us, note especially those two which apply directly to the privilege of prayer.

45:51 For I've stated that prayer as privilege is not only something that rests down upon the work of Christ past and present for us, but the gift of the Spirit who both inclines us to and assists us in the privilege of prayer. Look at these texts, first of all, that show that He inclines us to pray by giving us a felt sense of our adopted status and privilege. This is how the Holy Spirit assists us. He inclines us to pray by giving us a felt sense of our adopted status and privilege. Turn, please, to the book of Galatians. The book of Galatians, 13 of chapter 3. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.

47:00 For it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree, in order that, here was the end in view, in order that upon the Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. So that the foundation upon which God imparts His Spirit to believers is not that they've met three, four, five, or ten conditions and earned the Spirit. It's because Christ has died for us. And Christ's death has procured as pure, gracious donation the gift of the Spirit. Now, when we turn to chapter 4, an aspect of that donation is underscored and brought into sharp focus. Chapter 4 and verse 4. When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

48:18 And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father, so that thou art no longer a bondservant but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. Now, here's the principle that I want us to see together in this passage. The gift of the Spirit, that is the donation of the Father to all believers based upon the work of Christ, is the Spirit who has been given, among other reasons, in order to attest to our adoptive status and privilege. Notice, it is because of the work of Christ in redemption that we are granted not only justifying grace, guilty criminals declared forgiven, declared as though they had fully kept the law in all of its dimensions, that's justification, God in the courtroom saying, no case against you, the case is totally for you. All because of the life and death of Jesus. But God goes further.

49:40 In the redemptive work of His Son, He has purposed not only to settle the problems in the divine courtroom, but because of our sin in Adam we were disinherited sons. We were banished sons. And now we are adopted and adoption in Scripture is a legal status. It has to do with something God declares about us.

50:07 Regeneration, the new birth, is something God does in us. But adoption is a legal concept. It is being given the status and therefore the privileges of sons. So that God not only settles accounts in the courtroom, He opens up the doors to the living room, and He welcomes us to His knee and into His heart.

50:33 And you say, how in the world can anyone enter into that? Anything other than a lovely concept to be admired from a distance. How can we who know God ought to throw us into hell? We who are by nature defiled and polluted and obnoxious to God, how can we ever come to the place where we believe with all of our heart and are enabled in our hearts to approach God in a manner consistent with that belief that God has actually become our Father?

51:04 How can all of the barriers of our consciousness of unworthiness and sin and guilt and defilement and pollution, in a sense, it's a bit easier to grasp that in the court of heaven for the sake of another, God writes, not guilty, and next to that, Boots has fully kept the law in His substitute. Faith grasped that, I say, with a much shorter arm. But to reach up and grasp that this God takes me as His son, as His daughter, adopts me, gives me the status of a son, such a status that, according to Romans 8, I am an heir of God, as is His Son, and a joint heir, co-heir with Christ. How can I ever come to a felt sense of my adoptive status and privilege? Left to yourself, you couldn't. Do you know what God's done?

52:06 He gives the Holy Spirit, and among His manifold ministries, this is one of the most glorious. Look back at the text now, verse 6. And because you are sons, at your status, the moment you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Now, is He saying that the Holy Spirit in us sort of neuters us, sets us aside, and then He cries out to God, Abba, Father?

52:42 No. It's not the Spirit who cries out to God, Abba, Father. The word Abba, being the Aramaic word, a very intimate word, in Vine's expository dictionary, he comments that in the rabbinical commentary of the Mishnah, it is stated that slaves were forbidden to address the head of the family by this title. It approximates to a personal name, in contrast to Father, and it is always joined in the three usages in the New Testament.

53:18 In the voice of our Lord, Abba, Father, Romans 8, that we'll look at in a moment, and Galatians 4, 6. Abba is the word framed by the lips of infants and betokens on reasoning trust. It's the little child whose first word is Mama and Daddy. And all he knows is there's a peculiar bond.

53:40 There is a liberty of access and a freedom of approach when he comes saying Daddy, Daddy. That's something of Abba. It is the word framed by the lips of infants and betokens on reasoning trust. Father expresses an intelligent apprehension of the relationship.

54:01 The two together express the love and the intelligent confidence of the child. Now in what sense then does the spirit cry within the heart of the believer, Abba, Father? Well, the other usage in Paul's writing answers that. Romans 8.

54:21 Turn there, please, to Romans 8 in verse 15. Romans 8 in verse 15. For you received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but ye received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry. Abba, Father.

54:51 Now you bring the two together and what do you have? You have the statement in Galatians chapter 4 that the Holy Spirit who is given to us who are adopted is so needful and so presently active in enabling us to have a felt sense of our adoptive status and privilege that the way Paul words it by the inspiration of the spirit you would think it was the spirit himself who was doing the crying. He has sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father. So his agency is not a mystical notion.

55:34 It is not some high-blown religious concept. It is imminent. It is real. It is personal.

55:41 It is experiential. But according to Romans 8 it comes to the level of our consciousness when we are enabled to cry. Cognizant of all that is preceded in the book of Romans our part in the universal state of human sinfulness chapters 1 through 320 and chapter 5 verses 12 to the end our solidarity in Adam chapter 7 verses 14 to the end the remaining sin that makes us cry out wretched man that I am and yet in the light of the truth of justification and adoption the Holy Spirit is given to us in order to enable us to have a felt sense of our adoptive status and privilege that we can actually call God Abba. We can use the terms Father not as cheeky terms of over familiar heart communion with God no but as expressive of our felt consciousness as my father and his son I am his daughter

57:08 I am enabled to cry Abba O my brethren again shall we neglect that means of grace in which the Holy Spirit himself has come to make it possible and delightful for Jesus said when he prays say our well it's easy to say the words our Father but to have the felt consciousness of what it is to be adopted to be a son of the living God only the Holy Ghost can impart that and unless we are grieving him or quenching him or in some way I say it reverently suppressing his ministry through false conceptions of God and of his salvation in the heart that he dwells there is that felt sense of the adopted status and privilege and where does it find more glorious expression than when we pray so that we can not only say my Father who is in the heavens we have all the full spectrum of what it means to really know and believe that he is my Father he knows my frame

Prayer as Privilege: Assisted by the Holy Spirit (Ignorance and Impotence)

58:38 he remembers that I am dust and he delights to give good gifts to his children he bids us pour out our hearts before him at all times and as is mirrored in any available compassionate principled loving earthly Father take all that you see in the ideal Father that you've known on this earth and projected upwards to infinity and you've only touched the fringes of what God is his Father but then he also enables us to pray by assisting us in our felt sense of ignorance and impotence that's the other way to get to the Spirit assist us with this privilege of prayer he enables us to pray by assisting us in our felt sense of ignorance and impotence and here I direct your attention just briefly to another text in Romans 8 look at verse 1 verse 26 here I have a felt sense of my adoptive status and privilege and now I want to come as a son to pray but now I have another problem look at verse 26 in like manner the Spirit also helps our infirmities for we know not how to pray as we ought you see once the problem of lingering at a distance is overcome and I do believe

60:06 that as my Father he is delighted when I come from stated seasons that reflect the habit of prayer when like Nehemiah I live in his presence and shoot up what is called ejaculatory prayers to God throughout the day that my Father is delighted but now I have a problem I want to pray about a given issue and I have the problem of both ignorance and impotence I know not how to pray as I ought we know not how to pray as we ought we are under obligation to pray as we ought we are under obligation to pray obligation to pray obligation to avail ourselves of the privileges of approaching God as our Father but surely in coming to such a God we ought to ask according to his will we ought to ask with fervency we ought to ask with faith and there is where I have a problem I feel the problem of my ignorance to ask what I should and my impotence to ask as I should you ever had that problem all night talking to myself Paul assumes that all true Christians would be able to relate because he says the Spirit helps our infirmity we know not how to pray as we ought what has God done to help us there look at the passage but the Spirit himself

61:33 maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered and he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God in a marvelous sermon on this text B.B. Warfield in his book Faith and Life says in the introduction to that sermon the direct teaching of this passage obviously is that the Holy Ghost dwelling in Christians indicts their petitions and thus secures for them both that they shall ask God for what they have what they really need and that they shall obtain what they ask here it is asserted both an effect of the Spirit's working on the heart of the believer and an effect on this that is His working capital H the Holy Spirit who knows the mind of God enabling the petition to come according to the will of God His working on God even Christian men are full of weakness and neither know what they should pray for in time of need nor are they able to pray for it with the fervidness of desire which God would have them use ignorance and impotence I came on those words before I read Warfield's commentary I said Lord I'm in good company he says that's what we feel and this verse says the Spirit assists us at those two points

63:02 it is by the operation of the Spirit of God in their hearts that they are thus led to pray aright in matter and manner and that their petitions are rendered acceptable to God as being according to His will this is the obvious teaching of the passage then he says but if we understand it more fully he goes into the context beautifully pulls the strands together from the earlier setting and the subsequent context opens up the text and then says in conclusion this then is how the Holy Spirit helps our weakness due to the Spirit's working in our hearts we can see that there is a great need in our hearts and that is what we need in each hour of need and ask God for it with unutterable strength of desire the Spirit intercedes for us then by working in us right desires for each time of need and by deepening those desires into unutterable groans they are our desires and our groans but not apart from the Spirit they are His wrought in us by Him and the compound word used in the original brings that subtle nuance to the reason that we are together. It is not His setting our groaning aside, our praying aside, or is it ours, with His help being, as it were, some distant third or fourth element. No, there is this confluence

64:28 of the Spirit's ministry in the soul and mind and heart of the believer. They are our desires and our groans, but not apart from the Spirit. They are His, wrought in us by Him, and the compound word used in the original brings that subtle nuance together. It is not His setting our groaning aside, our praying aside, or is it ours, with His help being, as it were, some distant third or fourth element. No, there is this confluence of the Spirit's ministry in the soul and mind and heart of the believer. They are our desires and our groans, but not apart from the Spirit. They are His, wrought in us by Him, and God who searches the heart sees these unutterable desires and knows the mind of the Spirit that He is making intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Thus then the Spirit helps us in our weakness. By His hidden inner influences He quickens

65:36 us to the perception of our reality. He frames in us an infinite desire for this needed thing. He leads us to bring this desire in all its unutterable strength before God, who, seeing it within our hearts, cannot but grant it as accordant with His will. Is not this a very present help in trouble, as prevalent a help as if we were miraculously rescued from any danger, and yet a help wrought through the means of God's own appointment?

66:08 That is our attitude of constant dependence on Him and our prayer to Him for His aid. Christian, this is not fanaticism. This is fundamental baseline New Covenant privilege in conjunction with prayer. We've contemplated prayer as the believer's duty, that primary of the individual or private means of life.

Call to Action for Believers: Value the Privilege of Prayer

66:38 Now we've considered it as the Christian's privilege, and we've had time only to open up two strands of the Biblical support for that assertion that prayer is indeed the privilege of believers. We have seen that it is a privilege secured for us by the past and present work of Christ. We have seen that the gift of the Holy Spirit both inclines to and empowers and assists in the exercise of this privilege. God willing, in our next study, we'll consider that the promises of God encourage us to avail ourselves of this privilege, and fourthly, that our constant needs and necessities compel us to use this privilege of prayer. But I want to close this morning and ask one question of you, the people of God, and one question of you who are not the people of God. I want to ask one question of you, the people of God, and one question of you who are not the people of God. Have you viewed prayer not only as duty, but as privilege, dearly bought privilege, a privilege for which God has richly endowed you and me by granting us the spirit of adoption,

67:59 the spirit who attests to our spirits that we are the children of God, enabling us to cry, Abba, Abba. The spirit who assists us in our felt weakness of ignorance and impotence, not knowing how to pray and for what to pray, and we say, O God, grant your spirit in copious measures to be my helper, for you have said likewise the spirit helpeth our infirmities. Child of God, if indeed we view secret prayer as habit. Child of God, if indeed we view secret prayer as a divine disposition, as a divinely appointed means of grace, then perhaps the most significant text written over spiritual barrenness, some of you caught, as it were, in the doldrums and in the windless part of an ocean where the sails never fill and you make no progress, could it be James 4-2, ye have not, because ye ask not. And in despising this privilege, to some extent you despise the blood of Christ, the

69:21 intercession of Christ, the gift of the spirit, and the present aid of the spirit.

69:30 Prayerlessness is no little sin.

Call to Action for Unbelievers: The Necessity of Prayer for Salvation

69:33 And my unconverted friend, a universal characteristic of God's people is that they call upon their God. In 1 Corinthians 1-2, Paul describes believers throughout the earth as those who, with the Corinthians, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. And when Ananias is really nervous about going into the house of Saul, the Lord tells him, you go in there, and you do this and do that. He says, Lord, no way, Jose, this is the guy that is going after your people, and I'm one of your people.

70:09 And God says, all right, Ananias. What was the one thing he told him to set his mind at rest? He said, behold, he prayed.

70:20 Think of all the things he could have said. Behold, I've appeared to him. Behold, I've this. All he needs to say is, he's praying.

70:28 Not he's saying prayers like he did as a Pharisee. Oh, he knew what it was. He's praying. And Ananias throws a salute and says, all right, Lord, I'm on my way.

70:40 You see, so fundamental is prayer to the life of a true Christian. That's all we need to know. Do you pray or don't you pray? If you're prayerless, you're Christless.

70:51 And if you're Christless, you're without any covering for your sin. You're under condemnation and you're lost.

71:00 Oh, may today be the day when it's said of you, behold, you pray. My friend, you've got much to pray about. You need to go and cry to God to have mercy on you and forgive and pardon all your sins for the sake of Christ. Magnify his grace by snapping the chains that bind you.

71:19 Blot it out, the thick cloud of your iniquities. Go to God where he sits on a throne of grace. Go to Christ where he stands to welcome sinners in all the majesty of his regal grace. Kiss the sun in faith and repentance.

71:37 Cry to God and his promise, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved. The day we try to find some substitute for prayer, God have mercy on us. Because there is. There is no effective substitute for this divinely appointed means of grace.

Closing Prayer

72:04 Let us pray.

72:10 Our Father, what a privilege to address you as such. Our Father, our...

72:22 Oh, how we thank you for dealing with all of the just controversy you had with us because of our sins. Thank you for the grace of justification. But we thank you even more for the grace of adoption, the status of sons and daughters, the gift of your Spirit enabling us to have a felt awareness of that status that we may call you our Father with joy. Oh, God, we bless and praise you this morning, and we hang our heads with shame that we have so little availed ourselves of privileges so dearly bought.

73:05 We pray for those who cannot call you Father. Have mercy upon them. Make them jealous. May the things they've heard this morning cause them to say in their hearts, oh, that I might have that relationship to the living God.

73:21 And, oh, Lord, may they... May they have no rest or peace until they find that relationship in Christ. Seal your word to our hearts, our Father. May not the devil pluck up that seed that has been sown. May not the cares of this world choke it. May not rocky portions of our hearts cause it to spring forth temporarily only to wither and die.

73:47 Oh, God, seal your word and bring forth fruit to your praise. In Jesus' name, amen. In Jesus' name, amen.