Emmanuel Evangelical Church Chippenham

From 22^nd March 2007:

In this session we will consider what it means to praying according to God's will.

Background

Prayer is personal communication from us to God.

Last week, building further on the ‘mechanism’ of prayer, we looked at the simple but profound question of just who prayer is to be directed to and began to consider the role of the Holy Spirit in prayer.

It is true that the majority of prayers are directed toward God the Father (Matthew 6:9; John 16:23; Ephesians 5:20), but there certainly are prayers that are directed toward God the Son (Acts 1:24; Acts 7:59; 1 Corinthians 16:55; Revelation 22:20).

Although he is the counsellor and comforter, there is no record in the NT of prayers ever being directed to the Holy Spirit, yet he does have an important role in our praying. Perhaps the most obvious role that he has is described in Romans 8:26-27, in which the Holy Spirit is said to interpret our ignorant prayers and come alongside to help our praying, even though sometimes we will not realise it.

Today we’re going to begin to ‘unpack’ some of the misunderstood considerations in effective prayer:

Praying According to God's Will

• John tells us: 1 John 5:14-15
• Jesus taught us to pray: Matthew 6:10
• Jesus gave us an example: Matthew 26:39

Yet the question we need to answer is: ‘How do we know what God’s will is when we pray?’

1. Discuss what we can  learn from the example of the NT church: See Acts 4:25-26 (see also John 15:7)

2. What can we learn from Paul’s experience, detailed in 1 Corinthians 12:9-10?

3. What can we learn from Jesus’ experience in Matthew 26:39-46?