Good morning Gospel City. Open your Bibles to Luke chapter 11. Luke chapter 11. My name is Mitch Helmkamp. It’s a privilege to be one of your pastors. It’s a privilege to open God’s Word with you this morning. So while you’re turning to Luke 11, I want to ask you a question. So if you could ask Jesus to teach you anything, what would it be?
Imagine you get to take Jesus out for a cup of coffee. Just you and Him for an hour, one on one. And the purpose of this coffee date is you get to ask Jesus to teach you something. I mean, the greatest teacher in the history of the world, the one who knows all things, the one who created all things. You get to sit down and you get to ask Him to teach you something. What would it be?
Now the disciples, they spent a lot of time with Jesus. But throughout the four gospels it only is recorded for us one time where the disciples ask Jesus to teach them something. Now of course, Jesus was teaching them all the time, usually unprompted. Only one time in the gospels does it record the disciples asking Jesus to teach them something.
And it’s recorded for us here in Luke 11:1. So hear the Word of the Lord this morning. Luke says, “Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray. Lord, teach us to pray.”
Now this is an interesting request. Because the disciples, they were religious Jews. they would have been praying daily for years. And if you think about it, prayer, why do we need to be taught how to pray? Isn’t it just talking to God and God hears us? Why do we need to be taught how to pray? But for the disciples, something about being with Jesus, something about being with Jesus and seeing Him pray made the disciples realize, hey, we need to learn how to pray. I mean, there’s praying and then there’s really praying. And the disciples seeing Jesus pray realized they need to learn how to pray.
And Gospel City, if you’re like me, you know prayer is important. You know we should pray. You know you should pray. But prayer is hard. Even though it’s easy, it’s hard. I mean, it’s difficult to do, and even when you try it’s difficult to sustain more than a few minutes. If you’re like me, you just always feel like you should be praying more. And then prayer feels like a topic of guilt rather than anything.
And if this is true for you as it’s been true for me, then we need to ask with the disciples, “Lord, teach us to pray.” So the Bible has a lot to teach us about prayer. Today we’re going to focus on one thing. We’re going to focus on what the Bible teaches us about the rule of the Trinity in prayer.
So here is the big idea for today. The biblical pattern for prayer instructs believers to pray to the Father through the Son by the Spirit. I know what you might be thinking. You might be thinking, “Mitch, I thought the goal for today was to learn something about prayer. And then you bring the Trinity into it. I mean, the Trinity doesn’t usually help bring clarity to things for me. Thinking about the Trinity usually makes my brain hurt.”
And I get it. But let me assure you, nothing in my life has helped me more in my prayer life than meditating and marveling at the distinct roles of the Father, Son and Spirit in prayer.
In fact, in his book on prayer, Tim Keller says this. Consider the high value Keller gives to thinking about the Trinity and prayer. He says, “The primary theological fact about prayer is this. We address a triune God, and our prayers can be heard only through the distinct work of every person in the Godhead.”
So that’s a big statement. And with that statement in mind, we’re going to take our time today to consider the role of the Trinity in prayer and consider what the Lord has to teach us about prayer.
So before we dive in, let’s ask the Lord to help us. Dear Father, we thank you so much for what a privilege it is to gather as believers, to sing your praises, Lord, to marvel at what Christ has done and Lord to cry out with one voice, “All the glory to the Son!” And Lord I thank you for what a privilege it is to sit under the preaching of Your Word. Lord, Your Word is truth. Sanctify us in Your truth. Lord, we know that our souls, we need Your Word more than we need food itself. And so Lord, I pray that You would help us to feast on Your Word. I thank You so much for Your Word. I pray that through Your Word You would teach us to pray. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
All right. So point number one for today. When you pray, pray to God as your Father. So look back down at Luke 11, and we’re going to read through verse 2.
So one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray. And Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say: Father.”
Now I want us to notice from this verse that Jesus specifically instructs believers to address the Father in prayer. And to be clear, it’s not wrong to pray to Jesus. If you pray to Jesus, He can hear you. He’s God. He can answer your prayers. In fact, in Acts 7, Stephen offers up a prayer while he’s being stoned. He says, “Lord Jesus, do not hold this sin against them.” So there are times throughout the Bible, there are people who pray to Jesus.
Likewise it’s not wrong to pray to the Spirit. The Spirit is a person. He’s distinct from the Father and the Son. He is God. He can hear you. He can answer your prayers. But based on the biblical teaching, the majority of our prayers should be directed to the Father specifically. So Jesus teaches us to do that in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Pray then like this, ‘Our Father in heaven.’”
Jesus modeled this prayer, this pattern, in His own prayer life. Jesus would pray a lot. The gospel writers record Jesus praying a lot. But when He would pray, He wouldn’t pray to Himself. And the Bible doesn’t record Him praying to the Spirit. It records that He would pray specifically to His Father.
The longest prayer that we have recorded of Jesus is in John 17. And John 17:1 Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, “Father.” And then throughout that prayer He addresses the Father specifically six times. So Jesus in modeling how to pray, prayed, “Father, Father, Father.”
This is the pattern Jesus modeled and it’s also the pattern that continues throughout the New Testament. Paul says in Romans 8 that you have received the spirit of adoption, as sons through whom we cry or by whom we pray, “Abba, Father.”
Galatians 4 adds God has sent the spirit of His Son into our hearts praying or praying, “Abba, Father.”
So in general, the biblical pattern of prayer instructs us to pray to the Father specifically. And there are a lot of reasons this is important. I want to give you two. So number one, praying to the Father helps us think right thoughts about God. It helps us think right thoughts about God.
So my full name is Mitchel, but I spell Mitchel with one “l”, not two. And so for some reason, people who don’t know me, when they read my name, they often read “Michael.” They read it quickly and they see Michael rather than Mitchel. And so when I’m in a situation where I’m expecting my name to be read in public by someone who doesn’t know me, I’m not listening for Mitchel as much as I’m listening for Michael, like in a restaurant where they’re calling for food. I’m going to be eating Michael’s food most likely.
Even at my own college graduation, I walked across the stage. Four years. Lots of hard work. You know, my family is there to celebrate. After every one they cheer. But my name was, as I walked across the stage, I walked to “Michael T…T…Thomas Hamkamp.” So the guy called me the wrong first name, stuttered over my middle name and completely butchered my last name. Crickets. No one cheered. Because who is Michael T..T..Thomas Hamkamp? But I took his diploma.
So this happens so much it doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t offend me. I mean, I know what people mean. But what it does is it just communicates that the person doesn’t really know me. It makes me feel unknown.
And so when we pray, we need to realize that we are praying to a relational, personal God. Therefore, we need to call Him by the right name. We need to think intentionally. We need to be mindful of which member of the Trinity that we’re talking to. If we don’t, we’ll end up praying prayers like this. “Dear Father, thank You for dying on the cross for my sins.” Or something like, “Dear Jesus, thank You for sending Your Son.”
Now I don’t think God is offended. It’s not wrong. I don’t think He’s offended when we pray prayers like that. He knows what we mean. He is kind and understanding. He lets us come to Him like little children. But we need to be careful, because the Father did not die on the cross, the Son did. And the Son did not send the Son. The Father sent Him. And so when we call God the wrong name or when we’re praying and we’re not thinking right thoughts about God, it can really hinder our relational intimacy. I mean, how much relational intimacy can we have with someone when we’re constantly calling them by the wrong name?
And to be clear, our God is one. We believe in one God, not three. We are monotheists. Jesus is God. The Spirit is God. The Father is God. And yet the mystery of the Trinity, the most fundamental profound thing that we believe as Christians is that we believe in one God and three persons, that the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Spirit. And yet we believe in one God.
And if this blows your mind, then it should. But praise the Lord we have a God that is bigger than what we can understand. And yet He has revealed to us in His Word that He is the Father, the Son and the Spirit and that we need to know who we are talking to when we pray. So praying to the Father helps us direct our prayers to a specific member of the Trinity and it helps us think right thoughts about God in prayer.
Number two, praying to the Father helps us think right thoughts about prayer. So it can be easy to think about prayer like an impersonal transaction rather than a personal conversation. I know for me I’ve often thought of prayer just kind of like submitting a spiritual maintenance request.
So you know when you have an apartment and something breaks and you need to be fixed, you have to go online and you submit this maintenance request. And you don’t know who the maintenance request goes to. You don’t know if anyone reads it. You don’t know if anyone will get back to you. You’re just hoping that someone out there at some point will come and fix your problem.
But when you submit a maintenance request, your goal is not to have the maintenance man over for a cup of coffee and get to know him. You just want your problem fixed. It’s very impersonal. And if we’re honest, we can often view prayer this way. Like an impersonal transaction just to get one of our problems fixed rather than a personal relationship.
So this is why we need to think about prayer as a personal conversation with our heavenly Father because it changes everything. So when you need a house or you need a job so that you can put food on the table, you don’t cry out to an impersonal, distant, higher power who is somewhere out there who might answer you if he feels like it. You pray to your heavenly Father who knows what you need even before you ask Him. You cry out to your heavenly Father who loves you and loves to give good gifts to His children. You cry out to your heavenly Father who helps us not be anxious about anything in this life because He knows what we need and He loves to give good gifts.
I mean if earthly fathers who are sinners love to provide for their children, how much more will our heavenly Father give to those who ask Him? And when you’re facing a debilitating illness, you don’t cry out to an important, indifferent God who is somewhere up there. You cry out to your heavenly Father who loves you so much that He sent His only Son to die for you. You cry out to your heavenly Father who invites you to cast your cares on Him because He cares for you. You cry out to your Father who is a very present help in trouble, unlike the maintenance man. He is a very present help in trouble. You cry out to the Father, the maker of heaven and earth, the one who created your body, the one who can heal you by merely speaking if that is best for His glory and your joy.
This is the God we cry out to. When you are convicted of sin, you don’t confess your sin to a distant, cold judge. You confess your sins to your loving, patient, kind heavenly Father. You’re not grieved over your sin because you just broke some rule given to you by someone you’ve never met. You’re grieved because you’ve sinned against your heavenly Father who loves you.
Psalm 103:13 says that as the father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. And it says earlier that He casts our sins as far as the east is from the west. This is the Father we confess our sins to.
And most importantly, when we pray to our Father we don’t just go to Him to get things from Him. Prayer is not just an impersonal transaction. We pray to our Father because we want to be with our Father.
I have a son. I love to bless him. I love to give him things. But really I just want to be with him. The goal of praying to our Father is fellowship with our Father.
In his classic book Knowing God, J.I. Packer says this, thinking about what it means for God to be our Father as Christians. “If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity,” Packer says, “find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child and having God as His Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.”
So Gospel City, when you pray, don’t just submit a spiritual maintenance request to some distant higher power. We pray to the God of heaven, who is our heavenly Father. When you pray, point number two, pray to the Father through the Son. So praying to God is an incredible privilege and we cannot take for granted that the God of the universe hears our prayers. Because the reality is, no matter how hard I try, I could not get a meeting with the president of the United States. I don’t have his number. I don’t have any credentials. I don’t have any merit that would earn me an audience with the president, for him to hear me, let alone do what I ask him.
And throughout history, no one could just waltz into the presence of a king. That’s a quick way to get yourself killed. And so if that’s been true for human rulers and their human citizens, how much more true should that be for theo God, the holy God of the universe, and sinful man? I mean sin creates a separation between us and our God. As soon as Adam and Eve sin, they got kicked out of the presence of God. So why do we assume that as sinners, God should hear and answer our prayers?
The answer is because we pray to the Father through the Son. So just hear some of the verses throughout the New Testament that instruct us, that help us see, the access that the Son gives us to the Father.
Ephesians 2:18 says, For through him we have access in one spirit to the Father.
John 15:16 Jsus says, Whatever you ask the Father in my name, in Jesus’ name, he will give it to you.
John 16 says it again. Truly, truly I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give it to you.
John talks about praying in Jesus’ name five times. Matthew talks about it.
2 Corinthians 1 talks about it. It says, For all the promises of God find their yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our amen to God for his glory.
So we see this pattern all throughout Scripture. We pray to the Father through the Son. And this is important for so many reasons, but here are two. Praying to the Son gives us the ability to be heard by the Father. So it’s pretty common as Christians for us to end our prayers “in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.” We kind of just say it so fast it’s kind of all one word, “inJesusnameweprayamen.”
But to be clear, this is not a magic formula that guarantees that God will answer our prayers. We could say, “Lord, I pray that you would help me win the lottery. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.” That’s not how it works. And just because we pray that and we don’t win the lottery doesn’t mean that prayer doesn’t work either.
So to pray in Jesus’ name is a heart posture. Because the reality is if we think God should answer our prayers because we’re good people or beducase we go to church on Sundays or because we say, “God, if you answer this prayer, I’ll start doing that thing I know you want me to do. I’ll be extra obedient. I’ll be so thankful if you answer this prayer.”
If we’re praying like that, if we’re praying because we think we deserve an answer to prayer because there is anything that is good in us, then the reality is we are not praying in Jesus’ name. We are praying in our own name, no matter what phrase we tack on at the end of our prayer.
To pray in Jesus’ name is to say, “Father, I know that there is nothing good in me that could deserve you to hear me, that could warrant that I could even come into your presence. I am not coming to you because of my own righteousness, my own worth or my own merit. I’m not coming to you because I think I deserve to be heard by the God of the universe. I am coming to you because Jesus deserves to be heard by you and Jesus Christ’s righteousness is my righteousness. Christ’s worth is my worth. I am coming to you because Christ is worthy of blessing and honor and love and favor. And I am coming to you in Jesus’ name because no one comes to the Father except through the Son, for He is the way.
And praying like this has helped me marvel at Jesus. Usually when I’m praying like this I’m thanking the Father for sending His Son. I’m thanking Jesus because I know if it weren’t for what Christ has done for me on the cross, I couldn’t even be heard by the God of heaven. And yet because of Him, because of what Christ has done as the perfect Son, I can be a son. It leads me to worship Jesus while I’m praying to the Father because of what God has done for me through Christ. So this is a great way to think about what Christ has done, to think about the specific role of how He is helping you pray to the Father. It helps you love Jesus more.
And here’s what this could look like practically. So when we go to God, we’re often praying for peace. We’re always anxious about something. We’re always fearing something about what the next day will bring. And yet the reality is, we don’t deserve peace. As sinners we deserve wrath. We deserve judgment. And so why would we go to God thinking that He should answer our prayers for peace, when that is not what we deserve?
It’s because if we’re praying in Jesus’ name we’re saying I know I deserve your wrath, and yet through Christ I can have peace with You. And if we have peace with God, then there is nothing else that matters as far as what we don’t have peace with in this life. And yet through Christ we can have peace, a peace that surpasses understanding.
In Philippians 4 Paul instructs us to pray, offering up prayers and supplications with thanksgiving. And the peace of God which suprasses understanding will guard your minds and your hearts in Christ Jesus. So we can have the peace of God that surpasses understanding because of Christ.
And so this is why we pray through Him. We’re not praying because we deserve it. We’re praying in Jesus’ name. This is a heart posture.
As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1, for all the promises of God find their “yes” in Jesus. We deserve God’s “no” and yet Jesus deserves God’s “yes.” And so therefore we pray in Jesus’ name.
The second reason we pray through the Son is because it gives us access to be in the presence of the Father. So it could be easy to assume that prayer through Jesus simply means that God hears our prayers beducase of Jesus. As if prayer is kind of like a spiritual postcard and Jesus is the mailman that helps deliver our message.
But the reality is the access that Jesus gives us to the Father is so much more intimate than just a spiritual postcard. Jesus doesn’t just make it so that our prayers are heard in the throneroom of God. Jesus makes it so that we through Him can have access to the presence of God through the spiritual reality of prayer. Now this is true because Jesus, if you think about it, Jesus right now is in the throneroom of heaven.
Hebrews 1:3 says that after making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. And so Jesus right now, as we speak, is seated at the right hand of the Father. And yet as believers, we are united to Christ. We are in Christ. Christ is our head; we are His Body. We’ve seen this all throughout the book of Ephesians. We saw it in John 15. We are in Christ and He is in us. Christ is making His home in us. We are in Him.
And so this means that through our union with Christ we have access to the throne room of heaven when we pray. This is why we pray through Christ because Christ gives us access to the Father. I know this is heavy stuff, but this is one of the most glorious realities of what it means to be a Christian.
Hear Ephesians 2:5-6. It says, even when we were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with him. So we are born again. We are raised to life. And then hear what He did. He seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That is not future tense. That is present tense reality. Through our union with Christ we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Through our union with Christ, we have access to the throneroom of God.
This is why Hebrews 4:16 says, because Jesus is our high priest, we can draw near. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
So notice, because of Christ through prayer we can draw near to the throne room, to the throne. Not the throne of judgment. Not the throne of indifference. But through Christ, through prayer, we can draw near to the throne of grace. Prayer is so much more intimate than just sending a spiritual postcard to God. Through Christ we can draw near to the presence of the Father, who sits on His throne of grace, eager to answer us, eager to give us help in time of need because of Christ’s intercession for us.
Hebrews 10:19 adds, therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near.
I mean this is amazing. In the Old Testament, the Holy of Holies, only the high priest could enter and only he could enter once a year. And yet the true Holy of Holies, which is the throneroom of heaven, the holy places, we through the blood of Jesus can draw near whenever we want. We are invited because of Christ, through Christ, to draw near to the heavenly places, to the holy places, to the Holy of Holies, which is the throneroom of God.
This is why we pray through Christ. This is so important because it helps us understand the true reality of prayer. Prayer is not simply talking so that somewhere up there a higher power hears us. Prayer is the reality that through Christ we can draw near to the throne of grace. Through Christ we can have fellowship with God. Not just so that He hears up there, but so that we can have fellowship with Him in His presence.
With this reality in mind, Spurgeon says that as Christians we need to be well-acquainted with the heavenly throne room. So Gospel City, let me ask you. Are you well-acquainted with the heavenly throne room? Or would you be considered a stranger there? Does your soul long to daily draw near to the throne of grace through Christ? Because praying to Christ makes this a possibility.
And when we view prayer this way, we realize that prayer is not just a boring duty. Prayer is the greatest privilege in the universe. It’s the greatest privilege imaginable that we can draw near to the throne of grace through Christ.
So we’ve considered why we pray to the Father through the Son. Now third, when you pray, pray to the Father through the Son by the Spirit. So there are lots of verses that talk about the importance of praying by the Spirit. Here are a few.
Ephesians 6:18 says, Pray at all times in the spirit.
Jude 20 says, But you beloved, pray in the Holy Spirit.
Romans 8:26 says, Likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness, 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.
So clearly the Spirit plays a big role in prayer. Because Paul says to be praying at all times in the Spirit. There are lots of reasons it’s important; here are two. Number one, praying by the Spirit helps us overcome the weakness of our wills. So in order to appreciate the importance of the role of the Spirit in prayer, we need to first understand how much we have working against us in prayer, how much we have working against us keeping us from drawing near.
So as we’ve seen, prayer is the greatest privilege imaginable. And yet so many of us do not pray. And when we do, we think it’s boring. How can that be? How can we think that it is not important to answer the invitation to draw near to the throne of grace? This is why. Because our sin, the world and the devil are daily trying to keep us from fellowshipping with God through prayer.
So if you’re here this morning and you feel weak in prayer, if you feel unmotivated to pray and unmotivated to sustain prayer, you need to know that you’re not alone. But you also need to know that we are even weaker than we feel. Because the reality is our flesh hates the idea of crying out to God in prayer. Our flesh is prideful. And pride and prayer do not mix.
Prayer says, “God, I need you.” Pride says, “I don’t need prayer.” Our weak wills often listen to our pride then and say, “Yeah, I don’t need to pray. I’ll go throughout my day.”
It’s not just our sin. The world has a million things competing for our attention. Who has time to pray when there are dishes to be done and laundry to be folded and work to be done? Who has time to pray when the kids need to be taken care of, the kids need to be fed? Or why would you get up early to pray when you could sleep in? How can you spend an hour in the prayer closet when you have tv to watch or your phone to be on? I mean, there are so many things competing for our attention.
Prayer says, “God, being with you is most important.” And yet our weak wills often listen to the world that says, “Your daily to-do list is most important.” Not to mention the fact that the spiritual forces of evil are doing everything they can to keep us from fellowshipping with God our Father through prayer.
God says, “Cast your cares upon me my child.” And yet the evil one says; we often listen to our wills or the evil one that says, “God doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t hear you. You’re really going to spend time praying about that thing you’ve been praying about for years? He doesn’t care. He’s not listening.”
As Don Whitney says, if you think about it, prayer is talking to the most interesting being in the universe about the most important things in your life. And yet so many of us think prayer is boring and not worth doing. Surely this is a scheme of Satan if we consider what prayer is and how little we do it.
And so this is why we need to pray by the Spirit, because the Spirit helps us overcome the weakness of our wills that keeps us from prayer. The Spirit convicts us of sin and helps us realize how much we need to cry out to the Lord. It helps us realize that every breath is sustained by God. we can’t even make our hearts beat on our own. The Spirit helps us see how much we need God.
If you think about it, Jesus was the most busy man to ever live. I mean, He had really important things to do. He was healing people. He was teaching people. He was saving the world. And yet He took a lot of time to withdraw to a desolate place to pray. Throughout the gospels you see it. And Jesus withdrew to a desolate place to pray.
And if Jesus, who had the world to save, could make time for prayer, how much more should we make time for prayer? No matter how important we think our schedule is, no matter how many important things we have to do on our to-do list, nothing is more important than withdrawing to a desolate place to pray.
And the Spirit helps us see this. The Spirit changes our desires and helps us to want to be with God through prayer more than anything else in the world. The Spirit gives us wisdom to see that being with God is so much more important than our daily tasks, that we were created to be in relationship with God.
And so why do we think that everything else we have going on is more important than the reason we were created? The Spirit helps us overcome the evil one because He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. No matter how much we have working against us, trying to keep us from daily drawing near to the throne of grace. The Spirit helps us overcome our weakness.
So this is why we must pray by the Spirit. We must approach the Father through the Son, realizing that we can’t even be earning a presence with the Father other than the Son. And we can’t even muster up the will to pray apart from the Spirit. And so the first thing we pray is, “Lord, help me pray. Lord, teach me to pray. Lord, I know I should pray. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” This is why we need to pray by the Spirit.
Number two, praying by the Spirit helps us overcome the weakness of our words. So the Spirit helps us overcome the weakness of our wills and the weakness of our words. Listen to Romans 8:26 again. Paul says, “Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought.”
So this verse says that we are weak because we do not know what to say. And notice it doesn’t just say sometimes. It doesn’t say usually you’re praying and you’re just going along and you know what to say. But when you get tripped up and you don’t know what to say, the Spirit will help you out. This is a blanket statement. We do not know what to pray.
If we knew what to pray, if we knew what to say in prayer, we would see how much there is to pray about and we would pray without ceasing. And yet we are weak in our words, so we need the Spirit to help us know what to pray.
And so talking about how the Spirit teaches us to pray, Eugene Peterson compares it to the way that we learn to speak English or the way that anyone else would learn how to speak a language. Obviously babies don’t come into this world just knowing what words to use. They don’t know to call their dad, “dad.” They have to be taught the word for your dad is “dad.” Every word my son knows we’ve had to teach it to him or someone had to teach it to him. He didn’t just invent the word. It wasn’t in him. It had to be spoken to him.
Peterson says, “All language is spoken into us before it comes out of us.” And the same is true in prayer. Speaking to God is not like speaking to anyone else. We have to learn how to speak to Him. And the way we learn how to speak to Him is by Him speaking to us. And as He speaks to us, we learn what He cares about, we learn what He wants to talk about. We learn His will. We learn what He desires. We learn what is His view of the world. We learn the true perspective on the world, the true perspective on our own hearts, the true perspective of where everything is headed.
And the way that this happens, the way that God speaks to us, the way that we learn the language of prayer, is through His Word. So this is where the Spirit comes in. The Spirit teaches us what to pray by us reading the Word, and then the Spirit opens our eyes to see what God cares about. The Spirit helps our hearts taste and see what God has revealed to us through His Word. The Spirit is the one who wrote the Word, speaks the Word into us and then helps us speak the Word back to God.
And so if we want to learn how to pray, if we feel weak in prayer, if we don’t know what to say, what we need to do is we need to immerse ourselves in the biblical language. Because as the Bible comes in, prayer will go out. As God’s will comes into our hearts, God’s will will come out of us in our prayers.
So this is why we must pray by the Spirit. Because apart from Him we have no desire to pray. And even when we do, we have no idea what to say. And yet praise the Lord that the Spirit helps us in our weakness. And with that, we’re just scratching the surface of all that the Trinity has, all the role of the Trinity in prayer.
We pray to the Father because God is not just some distant higher power somewhere up there. He’s our heavenly Father who loves us and wants to have a relationship with us. We pray through the Son because God is holy and we are not. Yet because of who Christ is we can daily draw near to the throne of grace with confidence.
We pray by the Spirit because we’re weak and we don’t know what to pray. We don’t know how to pray. We don’t know why we should pray. And yet by the Spirit He helps us in our weakness as we cry out to Him and say, “Lord, teach me to pray. Lord, by Your Spirit help me pray.”
So I know the topic of the Trinity is a weighty subject. But let me encourage you by closing with this quote from a teacher named Fred Sanders. This is in his book on the Trinity.
He says, “You don’t have to get your Trinitarian theology all sorted out before you can pray to the Trinity.” So don’t let this message…I know the Trinity is weighty but don’t think, “The Trinity is way over my head, therefore, I’m too intimidated to even try to talk to Him.” The Trinity is way over all of our heads. And yet we come to Him and we say, “Lord, You are way bigger than I can understand and yet I want to have a relationship with you. And through Christ I can. And so by Your Spirit I want to be in Your presence.”
Sanders encourages us. He says, “Even if you don’t have your Trinitarian theology perfect, even if you wouldn’t ace a Trinity test, know that your God hears your prayers. The Father knows what you need before you ask Him. the Son gives you confidence to draw near, even if you don’t understand everything. And the Spirit knows how to pray even if you do not.”
And so Gospel City, this is our God and this is how He is teaching us to pray through His Word to the Father through the Son by the Spirit. And I don’t know what you have on your calendars this week. I don’t know what you have on your to-do list. But let me encourage you to make prayer a priority. Let me encourage you that because of Christ, through the Spirit, you can daily draw near to the throne of grace. Your soul is longing for that, whether you feel it or not.
So let’s pray.
Dear Father, we thank You so much for Your Word. We thank You that You are just patient and kind with us. We thank You that You teach us to pray. We thank You that even in our arrogance, in our prayerlessness, You are patient and You hear us even when we don’t come to yYou as often as we should.
And so Lord, I pray that by Your Spirit You would change the desires of our heart and help us to long to draw near to the throne of grace more than we long to watch tv, more than we long to be on our phones. Lord, help us to desire to draw near to the throne of grace. And Lord, teach us to pray as we pray. Lord, help us to cry out to you and thank You for sending your Son so we can be Your sons and daughters. Thank You for indwelling us with Your Spirit so that we can cry out to you, “Abba, Father.” It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.