Ephesians 4:4-6, One Spirit, our Helper in prayer.

Sunday October 25,2020

 

To allow the Holy Spirit, by faith, to direct every part of our life, which is the humility of dependence, obedience, and dedication is to admit our limitations and to be filled with the Spirit rather than ourselves (self-dependence). Apart from Me, the Lord said, you can do nothing.

 

Self-dependence is self-love. Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a man deliberately turns his back on all help in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost.

 

EPH 4:1-3

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, 3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

 

EPH 4:4-6

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

 

We all are indwelt by the one Spirit, and all with the same purpose: to gain the knowledge and the power to live Christ’s life. Our part - faith and humility.

 

So, we return to humility as a reminder.

 

Humility says that I have to completely depend upon God, submitting to all His will. I can do nothing without Him, and why would I want to do nothing?

 

We must remember that God, the Trinity, is a Person. When sometimes we use the expression to “desire God” we reduce God to the status of an object, as if He were a something that could be grasped and possessed the way we do riches or things. And though it is true that we are bound to hope for the fulfillment of our deepest needs in the vision of God, yet at the same time very dangerous to think of God mere as the satisfaction of all our needs and desires; that He is a means to an end. He is the end, and of course, the beginning.

 

Like drawing into a relationship with any person, there is faith and discovery. We approach Him through His word and by faith we discover God’s goodness and holiness. We also discover His promises that take our fear away, as for us to approach His holiness is a fearful thing.

 

The end goal is not things, but God Himself in rapturous relationship delight. We trust in Him more, we believe more firmly His goodness, and we become more faithful to our relationship to Him.

 

Be careful of every vain hope: it is in reality a temptation to despair. God gives what He wills in every believer’s life. If your faith rests on a vain hope, what will be of your faith when that hope slips away.

 

It may seem very real, very substantial. You may come to depend far too much on its fruition. You may make your whole spiritual life, your very faith itself, depend on this illusory promise. Then, when it dissolves into air, everything else dissolves along with it. Your whole spiritual life could slip away in your bitter disappointment.

 

Faith is not the same thing as self-confidence. Faith subsists when all self-confidence and self-respect are gone.

 

Self-confidence has its benefits, but faith is much deeper, able to subsist when we are terribly weak, when we are sick, when our self-confidence is gone, and even when our self-respect is gone. In fact, you must go through this many times to some level in order to understand what faith is and what it isn’t.

 

Faith doesn’t mean that we’re always feeling good, as some inspirational preachers of Christianity would have us believe. We are told that we will be comforted by God, implying that we will go through times of discomfort and have to get along with it. Faith depends on God no matter how low our situation or disposition is, and on the Holy Spirit within to teach the lessons we need to learn when we are down there. Only a humble man is able to accept faith on these terms, so completely without reservation that he is glad of it in its pure state, and welcomes it happily even when nothing else comes with it, and when everything else is taken away.

 

I may have nothing. And I may have lost something very dear that I thought God would sustain, but I always have my faith.

 

Faith does not guarantee good health, peace of circumstances, good luck, success in business, popularity, world peace, or any other good thing we can imagine. God can give us these things, or He may take them away. They are of no importance compared with faith.

 

In one passage, the Holy Spirit intercedes for the believer as he prays. This should excite your prayer life. He guides the believer and prays for him to the Father.

 

ROM 8:26-27

And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

 

This truth eliminates all prayers by rote. Since it is true that we don’t know how to pray as we should, we have to rely on Someone who knows how. We are promised the Holy Spirit to take that role. However, we go to God with desire. Desire, right or wrong, doesn’t need to be explained in proper words or procedures. It just is.

 

Pray to God with proper desire for His good things, unworried about phrasing or style, and the Holy Spirit will intercede.

 

The question arises as to why the Holy Spirit, and the Lord Jesus intercede for us.

 

ROM 8:33-34

Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; 34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.