You can’t do it anyway.
What? We shouldn’t even try to pray? Who is writing this? Well, keep reading.
Prayer is a miracle. Yes, prayer connects us with the power of God who does miracles but that’s not what I mean. Prayer itself, when it happens, is a miracle. Prayer is communion with the Almighty Creator and Lord of all things. It is hearing from God through His Word and calling on Him for yourself and others. But those things don’t just happen. You have no ability to make them happen. Whenever you actually set your heart and mind to seek the Lord, to wait upon Him, to hear from Him and commit yourself to serve Him – that is a whole sequence of miraculous gifts of grace.
“[Praying] that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…” Ephesians 1:17-18
The old Puritans knew this and taught it frequently – the things you simply cannot do.
“To suppose that whatever God requires of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of no effect… All other ways of mortification are vain, all helps leave us helpless, it must be done by the Spirit.” John Owen
- A non-believer cannot seek God. She knows there is a Creator but has actively suppressed that knowledge and through ongoing rebellion against the good she knows she ought to do has become enslaved to her own flesh and to the gods of this world. “No one understands; no one seeks God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:10-12).
- A non-believer cannot repent. He is blind to his sin, dead in his sin, enslaved to his sin. Only by a miracle of God’s grace can a sinner’s eyes be opened and his heart prepared to respond to the gospel in repentance and faith. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44).
- A non-believer cannot believe. She has no capacity to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ and respond in sincere personal commitment. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).
“Before the work of grace the heart is ‘stony.’ It can do no more than a stone can do to please God...The custom of sinning takes away the sense of it, the course of the world takes away the shame of it.” John Owen
You say, Ok, I see that for a non-believer, but a follower of Jesus has been baptized in the Holy Spirit, given a new heart and filled with the power of God – aren’t we now capable of seeking God and living in obedience to Him? The Biblical answer is “Yes,” and “No.”
If we walk in the Spirit, then yes, we can obey God’s law, live in holiness and worshipful devotion and wholehearted service to the Lord. But if we walk in the flesh (our old, sinful nature) we can quench the power of the Spirit in our lives and fall back into functional slavery to our selfishness and sin – and one result of this state is that we will be unaware of the fleshly condition we are in.
This is why Paul prays so consistently for spiritual wisdom and power for believers even as he quickly goes on to exhort them to walk in the Spirit not in the flesh. Why is Romans 7 in between Romans 6 and 8? One simple answer is because even justified, Spirit-indwelt believers (Rom. 6) can fall back into the control of the flesh (Rom. 7) and need all the resources of the gospel (Rom. 8) to be set free.
Consider what the regenerated believer cannot do (apart from the Spirit):
- The believer cannot love God sincerely. We are programmed to love ourselves. Most of what we do in the name of loving God is actually loving ourselves – seeking to avoid eternal punishment, hoping to feel better about ourselves, wanting to experience something more than our regular boring existence. “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7-8 – written to Christians about the danger of living like non-Christians!).
- The believer cannot see (much less overcome) their sin. “The heart is deceitful and desperately sick” (Jer. 17:9). Just because your conscience is clear does not mean you are innocent. It is possible, indeed, inevitable, that our hearts can become hardened to the Spirit’s conviction in some, maybe many areas – so we don’t feel guilty about them; but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t feel guilty about them. We must pray for an increasing sensitivity to sin and discipline ourselves to fight against it. “You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart… put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires” (Eph. 4:17-22 – written to Christians about the deceitfulness of sin that remains in our flesh).
- The believer cannot pray or serve or anything else. The great American lie is “You can.” If the devil can convince you that you don’t need God then you don’t need to pray or really do anything to change your life. The truth of Scripture is “you cannot.” On our own, in the flesh, we are helpless. “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Nothing is a very comprehensive word. It leaves very little room for interpretation.
“When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone; but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be vigorous at all times and in all.” John Owen
Pastor, why in the world are you telling us all of this? Are you trying to depress us?
No. I’m trying to make us realistic and Biblical. For only when we realize what we cannot do are we in the position to ask God – to really cry out to Him – to help us do all the things that we cannot do apart from Him.
- The non-believer cannot seek God, but she can cry out to God, asking for the desire to seek Him that she cannot manufacture on her own.
- The non-believer cannot repent or believe, but he can cry out to God, asking for the desire to turn from sin and look to Jesus.
- The believer cannot really pray or sincerely love God, but we can cry out to God to set us free from our slavery to selfishness and to this world and to help us begin to desire Him and to see our desperate daily need for Him.
- The believer cannot overcome sin, but we can call on the Name of Jesus to show us the fullness of His victory over sin and to give us the courage and strength to walk in holiness with a couple of other struggling saints.
- The believer cannot effectively serve anyone or reach anyone with the gospel, but we can cry out to God to give us His heart for the lost and hurting around us, begging Him to work in their lives and use us as instruments of His love and grace to them.
“Let our hearts admit, ‘I am poor and weak. Satan is too subtle, too cunning, too powerful; he watches constantly for advantages over my soul. The world presses in upon me with all sorts of pressures, pleas, and pretenses. My own corruption is violent, tumultuous, enticing, and entangling. As it conceives sin, it wars within me and against me. Occasions and opportunities for temptation are innumerable. No wonder I do not know how deeply involved I have been with sin. Therefore, on God alone will I rely for my keeping. I will continually look to Him.” John Owen
What is all of this, Pastor? This whole thing (and congrats if you made it this far, against all the power of your flesh) is an invitation to pray. I know you cannot make yourself desire to pray or see the need for it. Those are miracles only God can accomplish.
So all you can do is fall on your knees and ask God to give you the desire to pray and to show you how much you need Him and therefore you need to pray.
I could’ve just said, “Sign up for an hour of prayer in Oakwood’s GreenHouse of prayer.” But that would’ve bounced off your hard, deceitful heart – as it does off of mine – with all manner of fleshly excuses and rationalizations that you would have perceived as righteous time management or gospel freedom to pray (or not) wherever and however you want (or don’t want). Now maybe you will question your resistance to that invitation and take the first step of asking God to work in your heart.
Oh, and I know that most people are intimidated to pray with the pastors and the prayer team (those super spiritual folks the rest of us can’t attain to), so I hesitate to even mention the prayer time this Sunday (Sept. 4, 9:15-10:15 a.m. in the prayer room). I know you won’t come to that – at least not apart from a miracle of the Holy Spirit.
“Believers obey Christ as the one by whom our obedience is accepted by God. Believers know all their duties are weak, imperfect, and unable to abide in God’s presence. Therefore they look to Christ as the one who bears the iniquity of their holy things, who adds incense to their prayers, gathers out all the weeds from their duties and makes them acceptable to God.” John Owen
If you’ve come this far and still want more, your reward is Tim Keller and more Puritans here.