MOVING IN THE SPIRIT, CORPORATE PRAYER

When Jesus sent out the disciples, he sent them out with a driving purpose going into all the world to preach the gospel to the whole creation.

He sent them out with a vision.

“And all authority, all power has been given to me on heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations … teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”

Matthew 18

But when Jesus sent the disciples out he also sent them out with a warning.

That they were not going out into a Rose Garden.

Behold, I send you out as sheep.

In the midst of wolves. Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

As we go out there every day .....

continuing that purpose

fulfilling that vision

making disciples

living with power

speaking with authority

… these things are inevitably going to be done.... in the midst of a conflict.

There is an enemy….

So these can only be done by conquering this enemy who is trying to stop the Body of Christ at every point.

This enemy which will try to sidetrack the Body from our purpose… into stagnation, will try to dissipate our vision so we don't know where we’re going or who we are.

This enemy will try to split us off, to divide us from the source of our power, Jesus.

If there is disunity, if we're broken off from him, or from each other... we lose our power.

From that day, there have been followers of Jesus who have gone forth faithful to that vision and purpose, accomplishing it, making disciples of all nations, and continuing with life and with authority, right up to their dying day and on through.

And there have also been disciples of Jesus who began with great enthusiasm but who after a while….

sank into stagnation,

lost their vision,

and ended up with no power...

victims of the enemy.

Paul understood that to follow Jesus involves a battle, that to make disciples is a conflict... gives us this advice

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; besides all these, taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance...

Ephesians 6:10-18a

Now we are inclined to take this passage and become fascinated with the armor and the sword and to miss the fact that in this list of essentials that Paul gives us to survive and conquer this conflict is prayer.

Pray at all times in the spirit, with all prayer and supplication

to that end keep alert with all perseverance

This is what makes the armor and the sword work.

In other words, if I have the sword, and I have the shield, and I have the helmet on my head... but no prayer my sword melts in my hand and my helmet and my shield become rubber.

Pray at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication

Those Saints who understand what that means and do it …

... go from strength to strength. They never burnout.

Pray at all times in the spirit, those Saints who fail to understand what this means, or fail to do it…

...end up stagnant, visionless and powerless.

So what does it mean to pray in the spirit?

One day Jonathan the son of Saul said to the young man who carried his armor, “Come, let us go over to the Philistine garrison on the other side.” But he did not tell his father.  Saul was staying in the outskirts of Gibeah in the pomegranate cave at Migron. The people who were with him were about six hundred men, including Ahijah the son of Ahitub, Ichabod’s brother, son of Phinehas, son of Eli, the priest of the Lord wearing an ephod. And the people did not know that Jonathan had gone. Within the passes, by which Jonathan sought to go over to the Philistine garrison, there was a rocky crag on the one side and a rocky crag on the other side. The name of the one was Bozez, and the name of the other Seneh.  The one crag rose on the north in front of Michmash, and the other on the south in front of Geba.

Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, “Come, let us go over to the garrison of uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few.”  And his armor-bearer said to him, “Do all that is in your heart. Do as you wish. Behold, I am with you heart and soul.”  Then Jonathan said, “Behold, we will cross over to the men, and we will show ourselves to them.  If they say to us, ‘Wait until we come to you,’ then we will stand still in our place, and we will not go up to them.  But if they say, ‘Come up to us,’ then we will go up, for the Lord has given them into our hand. And this shall be the sign to us.”  So both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines. And the Philistines said, “Look, Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have hidden themselves.” 

And the men of the garrison hailed Jonathan and his armor-bearer and said, “Come up to us, and we will show you a thing.” And Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, “Come up after me, for the Lord has given them into the hand of Israel.”  Then Jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet, and his armor-bearer after him. And they fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer killed them after him.  And that first strike, which Jonathan and his armor-bearer made, killed about twenty men within as it were half a furrow’s length in an acre. And there was a panic in the camp, in the field, and among all the people. The garrison and even the raiders trembled, the earth quaked, and it became a very great panic.

1 Samuel 14:1-15 (ESV)

At this time, the land of Israel was occupied by an enemy. The Philistine armies could camp anywhere they wished and they could take food from the Israelites whenever and wherever they chose. They controlled the making of iron, so if your sickle needed to be sharpened, you had to find the Philistines to get it sharpened. If you needed to get your plow edge fixed, you had to go to the Philistines to get it done. And if you didn't have a sword and didn't keep it well hidden you were out of luck. They made the swords and they sure didn’t make any swords for Israelites. King Saul and his armies were trying to break the yoke of these Philistines, but they were failing at every point. Once in a while they’d win a battle, but they weren't getting anywhere because Israel as a nation.

Jonathan, Saul’s son, together with his armor bearer now show the way out of this mess…. They show that it's possible that two people coming together in unity can break the yoke of the Philistines.

This is not just a description of how to win a military victory. This is an example of …

how to pray in the Spirit...

how to break the yoke of the enemy by praying in the spirit...

how we can break the yoke of the enemy by praying in the spirit.

So what does it mean to pray in the spirit?

To Pray in the Spirit means to pray in the plural... instead of the singular.

“Come, let us go over to the garrison of uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few.” 

And his armor-bearer said to him, “Do all that is in your heart. Do as you wish. Behold, I am with you heart and soul.” 

See... let us go over. Let's do this together. I'm with you, as is your mind, so is mine.

Where two of you agree on Earth about anything they ask,

it will be done for them by my Father in Heaven.

Our father, who art in heaven,

(not my father, our father).

Give us this day Our Daily Bread.

Forgive us our trespasses.

Plural, always plural.

To pray in the spirit means that I have to come out of my little individualistic compartment and join the body of Christ.

Yield. Fit in. Submit.

If I'm praying alone in my room with the door shut, as we're commanded to do, it makes a big difference if I see my prayer as part of the prayers of the Body.

We're praying with and for the people that pled them.

What a change and what a wonderful thing if I pray for the people of Lebanon or Somalia or Kampuchea or wherever in the world where there's anguish and suffering, and see my prayers going up, not alone, but as part of the body, joining the prayers of Saints all over the earth.

This does something for me and for them.

And what it does for the heart of the Father is beyond our comprehension.

It's extremely helpful even to find at least one other person that we can join our heart to, somebody we can really pray with when you know you have a problem that needs to be prayed about. Someone you can pick up the phone and talk to them and ask them to join you in prayer.

When those five prophets of the Lord and teachers of the Lord were gathered in Acts 13 in Antioch, they prayed in the plural.

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting…

And then they prayed and fasted some more, laid their hands on them, and sent them out

And notice even they were sent out in the plural. It wasn't just Paul, it was Paul and Barnabas.

To pray in the spirit Is to pray in the mind of God.

… Not to come up with some scheme of our own and then ask God to bless it.

How much is done, ostensibly, in the name of the Kingdom of God, which is really done in the name of our own egos?

We have to give up on that.

We have to find out what the mind of God is.

We have to seek his mind.

We have to enter into the heart of God, and join our hearts to his heart.

Then we can pray in the spirit.

Then Jonathan said, “Behold, we will cross over to the men, and we will show ourselves to them.  If they say to us, ‘Wait until we come to you,’ then we will stand still in our place, and we will not go up to them. 

But if they say, ‘Come up to us,’ then we will go up, for the Lord has given them into our hand. And this shall be the sign to us.” 

What we see here is Jonathan and his armor bearer doing something that's absolutely crazy.

But it's not something that originates, really originates in Jonathan’s mind. It’s something he himself, incomprehensibly to him, is being guided to do.

He wants to be moving in the mind of God, but he doesn't want to go too fast or too far.

He wants to be sure, and so he checks this out as he's going along.

If they say come up, then we'll go.

If they don't, we won't.

They don't cook up a scheme and then ask God to bless them.

They seek to submit and enter into the mind of God.

There are miracles already in the mind of God which he ordains to be performed by his Body the church and then by specific assemblies of believers.

Miracles that will be done through us, but they will only be done when our hearts are so joined to his heart that we come close enough to him so that he can show us what these things are. And when we know what they are and they are from him….

….then we can pray, and then they will happen.

But they won't happen until we pray.

Nor will they happen until we know what they are.

And we won't know what they are until we learn how to seek his mind and wait upon him.

To pray in the spirit Is to pray against the power of the enemy.

We're not praying in a Rose Garden. We're praying in a battle zone.

And even if you do go into the garden alone and the dew is still on the roses, you better understand that even the rose garden with the dew on the roses is a battleground.

Then Jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet, and his armor-bearer after him. And they fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer killed them after him.  And that first strike, which Jonathan and his armor-bearer made, killed about twenty men within as it were half a furrow’s length in an acre.

Every time we pray in the Spirit, we're climbing up that rocky slope on our hands and feet with Jonathan and his armor bearer ...

We’re cutting our way through the armies of the Philistines.

We're battling the current of the rivers of Babylon.

We're throwing down the strongholds of Satan.

Every time people pray in the name of the Lord, they're coming against the currents of this world, which is Babylon.

And the one thing the enemy seeks to do is to stifle our prayer.

If we don't pray....

We're absolutely helpless.

We're absolutely inconsequential as far as he's concerned.

He doesn’t have to do anything else to us, he’s already put us to sleep.

If we do pray, then we exercise a power which the enemy can’t withstand, that he can't even understand.

He knows it's awesome, but he doesn't know what's going on, clever as he is.

Simon, Simon, Satan has desired (to have all you guys) that he might sift you like wheat

But I pray for thee Simon (you alone)

That your faith may not fail.

And when you are turned around again, strengthen your brothers.

And this prayer was a prayer exercised against the opposition of the prince of this world.

It's not a coincidence that you can never seem to find time to pray...

or that your mind wanders all the time...

or that you just can't seem to get into it.

It's not a coincidence, it's something that's very significant!

And until we understand that we have to cut through and break through these barriers, and continue with “all perseverance”, as Paul says, we'll never be of any use to the Kingdom of God or to ourselves.

To pray in the Spirit is to bring the life of the Kingdom of God down into this world.

And there was a panic in the camp, in the field, and among all the people. The garrison and even the raiders trembled, the earth quaked, and it became a very great panic.

There was a very great panic, because an unseen power had broken through into history, by means of the unity of these two men... under God.

Thy Kingdom come thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.

That's a prayer for something redemptive, something absolutely far into the system of this world.

Two people coming into that kind of unity under God become a manifestation of the Body of Christ and the life of the Kingdom enters into this world …. and breaks through.

On this rock I will build my church and the gates of death shall not prevail against it.

What does this mean?

It means that the church has the authority to crash through, to bring life from heaven into this world, and breakthrough evil and death.

The battering ram that breaks those gates of death... is prayer.

Breaking through those gates, taking life into that place of death... is prayer.

And everything else that we do redemptively rides on prayer.

“Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven

The responsibility of the body, the binding in heaven, it comes down into this world and the evil one is stymied.

Whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven

... and coming down from heaven, comes the life of God that sets the captive free.

“if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask,

it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.”

And the power of God comes down and works redemptively through our prayers.

For where two or three are gathered in my name,

there am I in the midst of them”.

Matthew 18

...and when I'm in their midst, heaven has come, life from heaven,…

the Kingdom is in our midst.

To pray in the Spirit is to pray in the plural.

To pray in the Spirit is to pray in the mind of God, the life of God, the heart of God.

To pray in the Spirit is to pray against the powers of Satan.

To pray in the Spirit is to pray the Kingdom of God down into this world.

How do you learn to do this?

Not by going to 50 seminars or reading 100 books. The only way we learn to pray in the spirit is to do it.

The more we do it, the more adept we become.

Pray at all times in the spirit, with all prayer and supplication to that end.

Keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the Saints.

Today, we stand in that rocky pass where Jonathan and his armor bearer stood.

And up above us are the armies of the Philistines, and they're laughing at us, mocking us, because for so long we have been so stagnant, and so visionless, and so powerless.

But we can set up a panic in their ranks...

If we will come together and pray in unity.

If we will take the trouble to enter into the mind of God.

If we will get bold and stop worrying about our own skin and move forward like Jonathan and his armor bearer and take some risks.

And if we will call the Kingdom down into this world, by praying in the Spirit.

Pray at all times in the spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

To that, and keep alert with all perseverance.

Richard Bieber 1984