Author: Dave

“The Spirit and Prayer: Grace and Supplication”
Zechariah 12:10
October 12, 2014
Rev. David Williams
Scripture: Zechariah 12:10
Sermon:
Introduction
	Do you ever have trouble praying?  Do you find it hard to pray for just a few minutes?  Do you find that when you pray most of your prayer is about things you want God to do?  I think that’s pretty common.  I know I find that in my prayer life. I’m sure many of you do as well. 
Sometimes, when we tell Megan that we’re going to change her diaper, she literally takes off down the hall or across the room in the opposite direction! [video] She doesn’t want to have her diaper changed!  Then, once we get her, she cries and squirms the whole time we’re changing her.  That’s like us and prayer.  Left to ourselves and our sinful nature, when God calls us to pray, we take off in the other direction!  When we do pray, we squirm and fuss the whole time, keeping it as short as possible.  Left to ourselves, we have a strong dislike for prayer and are opposed to coming into God’s presence.  This is the war between our sinful nature and the Holy Spirit within us.  
	Let me begin by saying that is not God’s desire for our prayer lives!  It is not God’s desire that our prayer times be forced, dry and boring.  God doesn’t want us to dread prayer or to feel like it’s a chore.  God’s desire is for our prayer lives to be rich, fulfilling and life giving! [pic] 
	So what’s the problem?  The problem is that by and large we don’t know how to pray.  Certainly, we have lots to learn about prayer and what to say.  But more deeply than that, we don’t know how to come into God’s presence.  Over the past number of weeks we’ve been talking about sanctification and the fruit of the Spirit.  Part of that discussion was about the fact that when we are brought to saving faith a war begins within us.  It is a war between our sinful nature and the Holy Spirit at work within us. 
	Our sinful nature is repulsed by God’s presence.  Our sinful nature doesn’t want to spend time with God, to fellowship with him or relate to him.  Our sinful nature is firmly opposed to us having a rich, fulfilling, life giving prayer life because our sinful nature is firmly opposed to God.
	On the other side of the battle field is the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit is God and part of the Spirit’s role is to reshape our nature so that we enjoy being in God’s presence, that we appreciate spending time with him and that we know how to relate to him.  In particular, the Spirit reshapes us to be capable of meaningful prayer.  The Spirit teaches us how to pray and intercedes on our behalf when we do pray. It is an ongoing work of the Spirit to give us a desire to pray as we should and to look forward to fellowshipping with God in prayer.
	This role of the Spirit in our prayer life is what we are going to be examining over the coming weeks.  We want to grow in our spiritual walk, which means growing in our ability to pray well.  We want to experience the transforming power of the Spirit in every aspect of our lives and characters.  For the next few weeks we will be learning about how the Spirit transforms our natures when it comes to prayer.
Context
	The first aspect of this change in our prayer life has to do with our attitude of prayer.  Our verse today, Zechariah 12:10, speaks of God pouring out a spirit of “grace and supplication.” As we’ve seen, when the OT speaks of God pouring out his spirit or a spirit this is a reference to the Holy Spirit.  So the immediate connection we can make is that the Holy Spirit is this spirit of grace and supplication.  Let’s take a look at our text and build from there.  
As usual, we will build up by starting with the original context of our passage.  Whenever we take a passage out of context we run the risk of making it a pretext!  Then we will make some observations about the text, interpret those observations and finally apply it.  You’ll see this on your sermon outline and notice it make the nice acronym COIN.  We model this method of studying scripture each week so that you will become comfortable using it on your own when you read the Bible yourself!
	So, context!  Who was Zechariah and when was he writing?  [pic] If you know your OT history, you will know that after King Solomon died, the nation of Israel was split into Judah in the South and Israel in the North.  After numerous generations of unfaithfulness, the northern kingdom was destroyed and the people carried into slavery by the Assyrians, never to be heard from again.  A few generations later, the same thing happened in the south. Judah was defeated by the Babylonians and people like Daniel were carried into exile.  However, after a period in exile, God worked through the Persian King, Cyrus, and many Jews were allowed to return to Judah and Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and reinstitute worship.  
	It was during this time that Zechariah served as a prophet for God.  Born in captivity in Babylon, Zechariah was not only a prophet, but also a priest. This means that he was able to participate in the worship in the temple, offering sacrifices, as well as speaking for the LORD.  Most of the book of Zechariah is about encouraging the people of Judah to do the hard work of restoring the temple because when we are diligent and obedient, God sends refreshing.  The people were initially excited at being able to return to Jerusalem! This was fantastic! This was God fulfilling his promises and answering their prayers!
	But then they got back to Jerusalem and saw all the work they had to do. Then they ran into opposition both from people around them and from within the Jewish community itself.  All the hard work of rebuilding the temple took its toll. They needed encouragement and a reminder to keep on doing what God had called them to do.  Zechariah was preaching to God’s people when they were tired and worn out, when their spiritual lives were dry and they didn’t want to keep up the hard work God had given them to do. 
So God speaks through Zechariah to encourage the people.  Part of the book speaks of their present day. Part of it looks forward even further than just to the completion of the temple.  Part of his prophecy looks forward to the Day of Pentecost.  This is what we read today- a prophecy about God pouring out his Spirit. All of which served to encourage the people that when they are diligent and obedient, God will send spiritual renewal and times of refreshing.
Observations
	So, with this understanding in mind, let’s make some observations about the text itself.  God is speaking, saying it is he who will pour out a spirit.  Pouring implies an abundance.  It isn’t just a drop here and a drop there.  In the OT, the Spirit was poured out on individuals, but it was rare, an exception to the rule.  Here, though, God says he will pour out his Spirit not just on a few individuals, but on the whole house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.  The house of David is a reference to the royal line and, as you probably know, Jesus was of the house of David.  Both Mary and his adoptive father Joseph were descendants of David.  But it wasn’t just Jesus or the house of David God had in mind when he made this promise. He also promises that all of Jerusalem will receive this abundant spiritual outpouring.  Combining the house of David and all of Jerusalem looks forward to the whole church, all those who are redeemed by Christ.  God’s promise is for an abundant outpouring of his Spirit on the whole church.  [John Owen, The Spirit and the Church, p. 91] Centuries later, Paul wrote to Titus saying the same thing.  In Titus 3:5-6 Paul writes, “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.”
	But God doesn’t just say he will pour out his Holy Spirit.  He is more specific than that, giving the role the Spirit will play.  He refers to the Spirit as a Spirit of “grace and supplication.”  Now, we’re familiar with the word grace.  Grace means undeserved favour.  Grace is “the way in which God deals with sinners in pity, compassion, free goodness and [generosity].” [Owen, p. 91]
	Supplication, on the other hand, is not a familiar word.  Supplication means humble asking based on a hope for mercy. [incl pic] In Hebrew, grace and supplication have the same root which means “to be gracious or merciful.” [Owen, p. 92]  The Hebrew word for supplication literally refers to an olive branch wrapped in wool or bay leaves lifted up to obtain peace or turn away anger. [Owen, p. 92]  You’ve probably heard of people “extending an olive branch” in an attempt to make peace.  Today you could think of “waving the white flag.”  It is a token of surrender, but more so humility.  It is a recognition that you deserve anger but are asking for mercy.
	So a spirit of grace and supplication means that God will work in people’s hearts to give them an eagerness to find grace and a sense of humility and a desire to make peace with God.  How will this happen?  What will be the trigger for this change of heart?  “They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”
	Who do you think this is a reference to?  One pierced, a firstborn son?  Looking on God and grieving?  This is a reference to Jesus!  Originally, this phrase was difficult to decipher.  There is a reference first to “look on me” and then mourn “him.”  Who is him?  But this makes a whole lot more sense after Jesus when we realize that looking on Jesus is looking on God and that Jesus is the one they have pierced and for whom they mourn.
	The people “will humble themselves and recognize that they were saved by another whom they pierced.” [Ralph L. Smith, Micah to Malachi, p. 277]  So, having grieved for the one they pierced, they will seek the grace of forgiveness and be humbled to come to God looking for reconciliation.
	So we see, in hindsight, what Zechariah was prophesying about.  Yahweh was going to do a wonderful work of regeneration and renewal in his people!  When they looked upon his Son whom they had pierced, the Spirit would be poured out on them, causing them to seek grace and forgiveness and working in them to humble them to come before God appropriately, in supplication.
Interpretation
	What does this mean?  Having made careful observations of the text, it is time to decipher its meaning, to interpret it. The first thing we see is that our desire to find grace and our attitude of supplication are a result of the work of the Spirit in us.  Our sinful nature is “allergic” to God.  Our sinful nature recoils from God.  So it is a work of the Spirit in us to create in us a desire for grace from God.  Grace and supplication imply repentance. [Smith, p. 278] A spirit of grace implies seeking forgiveness. That is the grace of God at work- that he provides forgiveness for sin and does it at great cost to himself.  A spirit of supplication implies humility towards God.  Seeking forgiveness and being humble towards God is as good a description of repentance as I can think of.  We usually speak of repentance as turning towards God, which is true.  But in order to turn towards him requires humility. In order to be received by him in our turning requires forgiveness through grace. So you can see that they are all intertwined, they are different facets on the same diamond of God’s love for us.  
	But supplication is not just humility.  Supplication includes an element of asking, of talking or dialogue.  This brings us to the issue of prayer.  It is a work of God’s Spirit to give us an attitude of supplication. That is, it is a work of the Spirit in us to bring us to prayer.  Prayer “is the main and most natural way in which we converse with God.” [Owen, p. 89]  
Prayer, literally, means talking with God.  But if you think about it, there are lots of ways we can talk to someone.  Think of a teenager giving attitude to his or her parents.  Think of an employee talking to a boss he resents.  Think of an overbearing boss speaking to an employee in a demanding way.  There are many ways we talk to one another.  What way is correct when talking to God?  Certainly it isn’t appropriate to give attitude to God! Nor is it his desire that we speak to him resentfully as a servant or employee to an overbearing employee.  It’s definitely not appropriate to be demanding with God either.  So how are we to talk to God?
	That’s where the Spirit’s work is so important!  The Spirit works in our heart, changing our character, giving us an attitude of repentance which is the necessary attitude in which to pray.  Left to our own devices, our sinful nature keeps us from speaking to God at all, or if we to speak with him, our sinful nature ensures we do it inappropriately.  First we run, then we squirm, kick and cry, like a baby having her diaper changed.  But when the Spirit of grace and supplication works in us, we pray well.  When the Spirit works in us, in prayer “we make use of all the grace God has given to us, for by prayer we seek to give to God our [allegiance] and thanks for all his goodness to us.” [Owen, p. 89]
	We absolutely need God’s Spirit to work in our hearts, though, if we are to pray well.  As rebellious traitors, we dare not come to God on our own terms. It is by grace that as sinners we can come to God at all!  But even then, we need to be in the right frame of heart and mind to come to God. It’s no good coming to him full of ourselves, full of our own pride and supposed goodness or righteousness.  How often do we find ourselves coming to God in prayer full of ideas about what we think he should do?  We come to him with a list of near demands asking him to do this, provide that, heal this person, fix that situation.  Is that an attitude of humility?
It’s no good coming to him accusingly, either, pointing out all the ways we feel that he’s let us down or not done what we think he should have done.  “Well God, you’ve let me down before, so I’m not sure why I’m coming to you in prayer now.” Or, “Well, you didn’t do this for me, nor did you do that. Do you think you could do this for me then?”  
No! We need to have the Spirit humble us and open our eyes to our own sinfulness before we can come to God appropriately.  We need to be shown the depth and depravity of our sinful hearts and brought to a point of deep sorrow for our sin before we can enter God’s presence as he desires.  We have to come to grips with our rebellion against God if we are to appreciate the grace he’s shown us.  And that is the work of the Spirit, to convict us of sin.  Then, having been made sorry for our sin, not just the consequence of our sin, we can come to God in humility seeking grace and giving thanks for his goodness to us.
	Often we experience this at our time of conversion.  But when we submit to the Spirit, this work continues.  The Spirit of supplication is the “Holy Spirit working in believers to produce gracious inclinations to the duty of prayer, as well as the gracious ability to [perform] this duty.”  [Owen, p. 93]  That is, the Spirit builds in us both the desire and the ability to pray. [Joel Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology, p. 426]  
	Without that work of the Spirit, we constantly come to God in prayer with the wrong motives, the wrong attitude, the wrong requests and wrong expectations.  Without the Spirit we don’t know what to pray or how to pray.
Now Apply It
So how do we apply this?  What can we do to help our prayer lives?  What can we do to learn how to pray appropriately?  Remember, God wants us to have a dynamic, enjoyable, life-bringing prayer life.  It is one of the primary ways in which we fellowship with God, in which we relate to him.  So have hope! You can have a vibrant prayer life.  You can enjoy prayer times.  It is one of God’s goals for you.  It’s not something you can generate on your own or under your own strength.  You can’t and so you don’t have to.  God has promised to pour out his Spirit on you abundantly.  What is required of you is your cooperation and active participation.
Prayer, then, in its variety of forms, such as praise, thanksgiving, supplication and meditation, is one of the chief responsibilities we have as Christians.  It’s how we get to know God. It’s how we hear him. It’s how we demonstrate our allegiance to him, listen for him, praise him, thank him and come to him with our needs.  It’s a very important part of developing our relationship with God.  If you don’t believe it, imagine being married to somebody and never talking to them, never communicating with them, writing, texting or anything.  How would your relationship do?  
So prayer is important. Prayer is a responsibility. It should also be a joy.  That is where the Spirit’s work comes in. As we’ve been saying, it is not in our nature to want to relate to God. We are defiant in our sinful nature.  We don’t want to let God be God. We don’t want to honour him, thank him, praise him or obey him.  We don’t want God to be in charge! [pics] Prayer, done through the Spirit, counters that attitude.  Yes, we can pray in a defiant way, but that’s not our goal.  That’s not what we’re shooting for!  We’re shooting for life-bringing, enjoyable prayer.  This is what we’re seeking and this is what God is eager to grant.  But how?
The Spirit, in his wisdom, gives us tools or spiritual disciplines through which we can develop an appropriate attitude towards prayer and, eventually, a healthy prayer life.  This leads to a healthy spiritual walk!  Some of these tools or disciplines include regularly reading God’s word and regularly hearing it explained.  As we read the Bible and ask the Spirit to bring its message home to us, we begin to see God’s grace.  We begin to see what God is truly like and it changes our attitude towards him.  You can go to church for decades and not understand God’s grace!  But if you start reading his word and asking the Spirit to bring its message home to you, you will start to see and understand the grace and love God has for you. That is a pivotal factor in improving your prayer life. If you don’t get God’s grace and love for you, you won’t want to spend time talking to him. Your heart will still be in rebellion and defiance.  If, however, the Spirit starts bringing home God’s grace to your heart, you will begin to understand that God is good and you will want to spend time with him in prayer, being drawn close to him, praising him and thanking him and in light of what he’s already done, humbly asking him to do more.
Regular Christian fellowship is another tool the Spirit uses to enliven our prayer lives. When we pray with others, when we unite ourselves with others in praise, thanksgiving and supplication to God, we learn how it works. We experience it in a new way.  We need other believers to model prayer for us and to draw us with them into God’s presence through his Spirit.
Another tool the Spirit uses in our spiritual development are the ordinances, or sacraments, of baptism and communion. Through our own baptism we are united with Christ. By witnessing the baptism of others, we are reminded of that union.  Through communion we are invited to participate in the work of Christ in redeeming us. That is what he means when he says, “Do this in remembrance of me.”  He is inviting us to commemorate and participate in the effects of his death for us.  Through these ordinances, we are reminded of God’s goodness towards us, of what he has done for us, of his grace.  These are important reminders for our prayer lives.  But beyond being merely reminders, they are tools the Spirit has chosen to use to bring us closer to God.
The final tool the Spirit uses to draw us closer to God is prayer.  We need to practice prayer diligently.  No athlete competes well without training. Even if you have tremendous natural athletic talent, you still need to train and practice to be competitive.  In the same way, we need to practice and training in our prayer life.  We need to practice diligently setting aside time to pray. We need to be diligent in clearing away distractions during that prayer time. We need to be diligent in practice to keep our minds focussed on the matters we are praying about.  But of utmost importance, we need to be diligent in asking the Spirit to teach us to pray!  The Spirit is our spiritual coach, so to speak.  But beyond merely coaching, the Spirit creates within us the desire and ability to pray.
One writer I was reading on prayer was particularly helpful in his honesty.  I could identify with him. He talked about how his heart was loathe to go to God in prayer.  Once there, his heart was reluctant to stay there. He said he constantly surprised himself as to how many back doors and paths his mind could find to slip away from God’s presence when he tried to spend time in prayer!  How true!  So, he said, he begs God to take his heart and set it upon himself and Christ and to keep it there as long as he wants.  In our prayer time, we often don’t know what to pray for. We don’t know how to pray for it.  So we need to ask God to grab our hearts and minds and hold onto them, teaching us his will, how to pray and what to pray for.  If not for the Spirit, we are unable to persevere in prayer. [John Bunyan in Beeke and Jones, p. 426]
	But we can find hope in our quest to pray well.  We can find hope in our search for help in developing a healthy, life-giving prayer life.  In our text, God promised that he will pour out his Spirit abundantly!  The promise of the Spirit is a promise of abundant measure enabling God’s people to pray according to his mind and will. [Owen, p. 96]
	I remember my dad talking about a pastor he met from Wales who had experienced revival.  The pastor was a heavy set fellow and he admitted, “Looking at me, you can tell I like my food!”  At one point, the Spirit was poured out on God’s people in the region and the church found new life.  The pastor said that whenever they ate, like usual, they would say grace before the meal. Only when the Spirit came in abundance, they enjoyed the prayer time so much they kept praying.  He said the food always got cold because they spent so much time thanking and praising God for their meal, and they didn’t care that the food was cold, because the Spirit of grace and supplication that was in them was so much more fulfilling and life-giving than the meal could ever be.
	The Spirit is eager to teach you how to pray and eager for you to have a life-giving relationship with God founded on prayer.  God’s desire is for you to love to come to him in prayer, to enjoy your time with him in prayer, and to be eager to come back to him prayer when your prayer time is done.  He wants you to enjoy being in his company, but in order for that to happen, our sinful nature has to be transformed.  He has to work in us a sense of our own sin and then a sense of his grace. He has to create a humble, repentant attitude in us so that we can relate to him as is appropriate- as saved sinners, as pardoned traitors, as forgiven terrorists coming to their rightful king, kneeling in humility and thankfulness.  That is the work of the Spirit to break down our defiance, giving us an attitude of supplication.
To Do:  So this week, ask God for his Spirit of grace and supplication.  Ask him to teach you the right attitude for prayer. Ask him to help you be diligent in using the disciplines he’s given you to improve your prayer life. Amen.