Here are the notes from last night’s study on how prayer is essentially a Trinitarian activity:
Prayer and the Trinity
What is prayer and why is it real?
“The Spirit unites us to the Son, who reconciles us to Father, and we pray back along that line: to the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit.”
1. How we get reconnected to God.
Heb 10:15-22 – The way to God is opened for us—Through Christ.
Eph 2:13+18 – But how do we go to the Father “through Christ”? By the Spirit!
This answers the question, “How does what Jesus did 2000 years ago have anything to do with me?” Answer: The Spirit indwells us and applies Christ’s work to us.
In other words: When Christ atoned for our sin, He removed the barrier separating us from God, and the barrier keeping us from receiving the Spirit of God. The Spirit is the Spirit of adoption, and when He’s in us, we are fully children of God, fully united to Him by His indwelling of us. When we have so, the Spirit is our actual union with God, and with Christ the Son. Just as He is in us, we are now “in Christ.” (Just as the members of the Trinity indwell each other.)
Romans 8:15-16, 26-27, 34 – The Spirit is in us praying, the Son is with the Father praying for us.
2. What’s really going on when we pray.
John 11:41-42, 12:27-29; 17:1 – Jesus shows us, in His earthly life, that He has a constant “running dialogue” with His Father. Since Jesus is our fullest revelation of who God is and what God’s like (John 1:18), this tells us that there is, and has always been conversation between the Father and the Son (and the Spirit).
Luke 22:31-32 – Jesus’ prayer shows us how this relation in God works. The Son asks and the Father grants. As the man Christ, He is the link between our asking and His asking as the Son. So prayer works because God has always been talking. Prayer is in the very being of God. We enter the sons praying.
Luke 11:1-2 – We’re invited into the conversation, and we’re invited to take up the Son’s place in the conversation. We’re invited into the Sonship of Jesus.
Prayer is a main way we fully enjoy this union with God, by speaking to God as people fully in fellowship with Him, with His very Spirit in our hearts. (Sanders: “Christians are people who talk to God like they’re Jesus.”)
3. Why we pray the way we do.
John 14:13-14, 16:23-24 – So, we pray in the Spirit, in the Name of the Son, to the Father.
In the Name of Jesus: Eph 5:20, John 15:16,
Praying in the Spirit: Eph 6:18
I’ll try to post the Andrew Murray quote I read last night soon…