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January 7, 2001 Prayer Week |
Bethlehem
Baptist Church John Piper,
Pastor |
(Jude 17-25)
But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, 18 that they were saying to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” 19 These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. 20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. 22 And have mercy on some, who are doubting; 23 save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. 24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
The focus last week and this week is on the phrase in verse
20, “Praying in the Holy Spirit.” Last week we answered the why question: Why
pray in the Holy Spirit? We got the answer from the relationship between the
participle “praying” and the main verb which follows it (verse 21a), “Keep
yourselves in the love of God.” “Praying in
the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God.” In other words, one
essential way to keep yourself in the
love of God is to pray in the Spirit. By
praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God.
We called prayer a “means of divine
grace.” Why did we use that term? Because keeping ourselves in the love of God
is not something we can do on our own. God is the decisive keeper of our souls.
If God doesn’t keep us, we will not persevere in faith; we will perish. We saw
that in verse 1 and verse 24. Verse 1b: “To those who are the called, beloved
in God the Father, and kept for Jesus
Christ.” Notice the passive verb: We are “kept,” not “we keep.” We are kept by
someone else, not by ourselves.
By whom? We saw the answer in verse
24: “Now to Him who is able to keep
you from stumbling . . .” Who is able to do that for us? The answer is in the
next verse (verse 25): “. . . to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ
our Lord.” So God the Father is our ultimate keeper through Jesus Christ.
Which means that our task of keeping
ourselves is dependent on God’s decisive keeping. That is why prayer is
mentioned as a crucial way of keeping ourselves in the love of God. God is the
decisive keeper. How then do we keep ourselves, if God is the decisive keeper?
Answer: we ask God to keep us. That is, we pray. Praying is the “means of
grace” that God uses to keep us in his love. God is the decisive keeper and he
uses means to keep us. One of the means he uses is our prayers, so we are
dependent keepers. And we show our dependence mainly by praying for him to do
his decisive work.
We saw an example this kind of praying
in Luke 21:36. Jesus says, “But keep on the alert at all times, praying that
you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place,
and to stand before the Son of Man.” Do you want to be kept from the
destructive effects of the last days? Yes? Well, Jesus says, “Pray that you may
be able . . . to stand before the Son of Man,” when he comes.
Another example of praying for God to
keep us comes from Jesus’ example of how he prayed for Peter in Luke 22:32.
After saying that Peter would deny him three times, Jesus says, “But I have prayed for you, that your faith
may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your
brothers.”[i]
This is the way we should pray for ourselves and each other. It is God the
Father who decisively keeps, but we
have a dependent role to play: We pray. And we pray like Jesus: O Father, don’t
let my faith fail; keep me. Prayer is the means of grace that God uses to keep
us secure and cause us to persevere to the end in faith.
Now today the question is not, Why?
But, What? And How? What is “praying
in the Holy Spirit”? And, How do we
pray in the Spirit?
The best brief statement I have found
of what it means to pray in the Holy
Spirit goes like this: It means “so
to pray that the Holy Spirit is the moving
and guiding power.”[ii]
The key words there are “moving” and “guiding.” In other words, when you pray
in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God is “moving” you to pray. That is, he is
the one who motivates and enables and energizes your prayer. And when you pray
in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God is “guiding” how you pray and what you
pray for. So, to pray in the Holy Spirit is to be moved and guided by the Holy
Spirit in prayer. We pray by his power and according to his direction.
Let’s see where this interpretation of praying in the Holy
Spirit comes from in the Bible. The first thing to notice is the very close
parallel passage in Ephesians 6:18, where
Paul says, “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit.” The
reason this is important is that it shows that “praying in the Spirit” is not a
special form of prayer – like speaking in tongues. We can tell this is so
because Paul says in Ephesians 6:18 that we should pray “at all times” in the
Spirit. In other words, all prayer
should be “in the Spirit.” Praying in the Holy Spirit is not one form among
several. It is the way all prayer is to be offered.
The second thing to see is the
parallel in Romans 8:26 where Paul says, “The Spirit also helps our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes
for us with groanings too deep for
words.” Here it is plain that one thing the Holy Spirit does for us is help our
weakness when we need to pray but can’t the way we should. So it is natural to
take “praying in the Holy Spirit” to mean praying with the help of the Holy
Spirit – with the strength and enablement of the Spirit to make up for our
weakness.
A third parallel would be Romans
8:15-16 where Paul says, “You have received a spirit of adoption as sons by
which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit
that we are children of God.” The point here is that the Spirit of God helps us
have assurance that we are children of God by causing us to cry out from the
heart (to pray!), “Abba, Father.” In other words, the Spirit moves our prayers.
He motivates, enables and energizes our prayers. That’s a key part of what
“praying in the Holy Spirit” means.[iii]
The other part of what it means to pray in the Holy Spirit
is that when we do so, our prayers are not only “moved” by the Spirit, but also
“guided” by the Spirit. This is no surprise, because if the Holy Spirit is
prompting and enabling and energizing our prayers, it would natural to think
that he does so in a way that accords with his nature and his Word. We would
not want to say, The Spirit moves our prayers, but they are not according to
God’s will. If the Spirit is moving us to pray, then he would move us according
to his will and Word.
So praying in the Holy Spirit would mean not only
experiencing the power of the Spirit
to help us pray when we are weak, but also experiencing the guidance of the Spirit to help us when
we are foolish or confused or selfish. For example, James 4:3 says, “When you ask, you do not receive,
because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your
pleasures.” That would not be praying “in the Holy Spirit.” That would be
praying “in the flesh” or in your own sinful nature.
So now the question is the practical
one: How do you pray in the Holy
Spirit? Don’t fail to see how utterly unusual it is to be told to do something
by the power and guidance of another. It is God telling me to do it – pray! And
yet telling me that it is a work of the Holy Spirit when I do it. It is just
like other things in the Christian life: Galatians 5:16, “Walk by the Spirit.”
Romans 8:13, “Put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit.” 1 Corinthians
12:3, “Say Jesus is Lord by the Spirit.” Philippians 3:3, “Worship by the
Spirit.” In all these things we are supposed to do something. But we are to do
them in a way that it is the Spirit who is doing them through us.
This is the way human life is, since
God is sovereign and we are responsible. We act. We are responsible to act. But
God is the decisive actor. Our action is dependent. So when we are told to
“walk” (Galatians 5:16), or fight sin (Romans 8:16), or confess the Lordship of
Jesus (1 Corinthians 12:3), or worship (Philippians 3:3), or pray (Jude 1:20),
we are told to do it “in the Holy Spirit.”[iv]
You do it so that it is the Holy
Spirit who is doing it in and through you.
So how
do I pray so that it is really the Holy Spirit prompting and guiding the
prayer?
Trusting God to Give His Spirit
I think there are two basic answers. The first is faith. We
pray “in the Holy Spirit” when we take our stand on the cross of Christ (which
purchased all divine help) and trust God for his help by the Spirit. In other
words, when you admit that without the help of the Spirit you cannot pray as
you ought, and then you consciously depend on the Spirit to help you pray, then
you are praying “in the Holy Spirit.” So the first answer to the question,
How?, is by faith – by trusting God to give you the Holy Spirit
to help you pray.
You can see this from the New Testament in several ways
(see, for example, Galatians 3:1-5; 2 Thessalonians 2:13). One is that in
Philippians 3:3 it says, “We worship in the
Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”
Here, worshipping “in the Spirit of God” is explained by “put no confidence in
the flesh.” I think that means, instead we put confidence in the Spirit, that
is, in God’s blood-bought mercy to help us worship as we ought by his Spirit.
So I take it that the way to “pray in the Holy Spirit” is the same as the way
to worship “in the Spirit of God,” namely, by not putting any confidence in
what we can do in our own nature, but instead looking away from our own resources
and trusting in the mercy of God to help us pray by his Spirit.
That is what we should do this year in
all our praying. Trust God for the help we need to pray. When you are too weak
or too confused or too depressed or too angry or too dull to pray, at that
moment do not assume that you can’t pray. Instead, consciously look away from
yourself to Christ and to the mercy of God in Christ, and trust him to help you
– even if it is only to produce groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26).
Learn to distrust yourself and to trust God in prayer. Learn that without him
you can do nothing and cast yourself on him at all times for all you need in
order to pray.
The other answer to the question of
how to pray “in the Holy Spirit” is to bring all your praying into conformity
to the Word of God which the Spirit inspired (2 Peter 1:21; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Right here is where God’s call to be in the Word every day and his call to pray
at all times in the Spirit become intertwined. If you live in the Word of God,
meditating on it day and night by reading it every day and memorizing portions
to carry with you all day and savoring them hour by hour, then your prayers
will be shaped by the Word. Which means they will be shaped by the Spirit. And
that is what it means to pray “in the Holy Spirit.” Not only to be moved by the
Spirit in prayer, but to be guided by the Spirit in prayer. And since this is
something we are called to do (“pray in the Holy Spirit”), our role is to take
what we know about the Spirit’s will from the Word and saturate our prayers
with it.
So that is my pastoral appeal to you
this year: Keep yourselves in the love of God by praying in the Holy Spirit.
That is, pray continually by banking on the Spirit’s help and by living in the
Spirit’s word in the Bible. Stay in the Bible and stay in prayer, and look away
continually from your own resources to the infinite and merciful resources of
God in Christ.
I close with some concrete examples of
praying in a Bible-saturated way – which is a key to praying in the Holy
Spirit.
When you ponder praying for $2.7
million more in pledges for Education
for Exultation, recall texts like 1 Chronicles 29:18, where the people
give lavishly to build the temple and David prays, “O Lord . . . preserve this forever in the intentions of the
heart of Your people, and direct their heart to You.” Then pray about the
intentions of the hearts of people and call on God to shape them and incline
them toward generosity. And say with David in verse 14, “All things come from
You, and from Your hand we have given You.”
When you ponder praying about the future of our church in 2001 and how to respond to growth, and how to structure for pastoral care and building and church planting and missions, etc., and how it all fits together to meet so many hundreds and thousands of needs, recall what Solomon prayed when the Lord said to him in 1 Chronicles 3:5, “Ask what you wish me to give you.” Solomon did not ask for long life, or riches or revenge on his enemies (3:11), but asked for “an understanding heart to judge Your people to discern between good and evil” (3:9).
When you ponder praying about the staff
additions that are to come this year at Bethlehem, recall what Jesus said to
the crowds in Matthew 9:38, “Beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out
workers into His harvest.” Pray with warrant from Christ himself that the right
workers would be positioned in his kingdom.
When you ponder praying for boldness
for yourself and others in evangelism, recall the way the church prayed in Acts
4:29 and what happened, “And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant
that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence. . . . And when
they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and
they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God
with boldness” (4:29-31).
And when you love someone and ponder
praying for his or her conversion, recall Romans 10:1 where Paul set his sights
on his own Jewish kinsmen and said, “Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer
to God for them is for their salvation.”
To be in the Word rightly is to be in prayer. And when faith and the Word shape prayer, we are praying in the Holy Spirit. And when we pray in the Holy Spirit, we keep ourselves in the love of God. And there every blessing in heaven will be ours. O learn to pray in the Word – for the sake of your soul and for the sake of the nations.
[i] Similarly,
Jesus prays in John 17:11-15 that
the Father would keep us. “I am no longer
in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy
Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may
be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name
which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but
the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. But now I come
to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made
full in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them,
because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask
You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.”
[ii]
Johannes E. Huther, Meyer’s Critical and
Exegetical Handbook to the General Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude, translator
Paton J. Gloag (Winona Lake, Indiana: Alpha Publications, 1980, original,
1883), p. 697, italics added. See also John Calvin’s excellent comment on Jude
20: “This order of perseverance depends on our being equipped with the mighty
power of God. Whenever we need constancy in our faith, we must have recourse to
prayer, and as our prayers are often perfunctory, he adds, ‘in the Spirit,’ as
if to say, such is the laziness, such the coldness of our makeup, that none can
succeed in praying as he ought without prompting of the Spirit of God. We are
so inclined to lose heart, and be diffident that none dares to call God
‘Father,’ unless the same Spirit puts the Word into us. From the Spirit, we
receive the gift of real concern, ardor, forcefulness, eagerness, confidence
that we shall receive – all these, and finally those groanings which cannot be
uttered, as Paul writes (Romans 8:26). Jude does well indeed to say that no one
can pray as he ought to pray, unless the Spirit direct him.” (John Calvin, A Harmony all of the Gospels Matthew, Mark
and Luke, vol. 3 and the Epistles of James and Jude, translator, A. W.
Morrison [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1972], pp.
334-335).
[iii]
See also the enabling role of the Spirit in our confessing Jesus as incarnate
Lord: “Therefore I make known to you that
no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus is accursed’; and no one can
say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3).
[iv]
Similarly 1 Peter 4:11, “If anyone serves,
he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may
be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and
ever. Amen.”
Copyright 2001 John Piper
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