The text before us is certainly
a most encouraging one: “And because
you are sons, God has sent
the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Gal. 4:6).
Our
thesis is that prayer is an inevitable accompaniment of our
salvation. If
you are a Christian, you are able to pray because God is in your heart, and therefore prayer should be as natural and spontaneous
as the act of breathing is to your body!
Prayer
can be at once the easiest activity and yet at the same time it
can also be difficult. Prayer is easy in that a little child can pray and speak to
God in an effective way and it can be
difficult in that an adult, having walked with God for many years, may find
themselves stuck their prayers
and find some of them unanswered. There are no easy answers as to why this
is so. Some possibilities may
include the fact that one may have lost their intimacy with God in prayer, because somewhere along the
line, an un-confessed sin has grieved the Holy Spirit (Eph.4:30), and so has shut
the ear of God. Perhaps,
somewhere along the line, a
husband’s prayer is no longer answered because they fail to live with their wives in an
understanding way, failing to show honour to her as the weaker vessel. (1 Pet. 3:7). Perhaps
there has been a substituting of a religious, legalistic habit as evidenced
in a begrudging, “I suppose I have to” attitude, for a
glad obedience which is rooted in
thankfulness and thus a deep
loving relationship with the Jesus who has saved them.
Other difficulties associated with prayer are that God may withhold His presence and answers to prayer for sanctifying purposes. The story of Job fits
into this category. It may be that He is
teaching us perseverance and
faithfulness by withholding answers to our prayers (Luke
18:1ff).
Our focus is however not so much on
the hindrances to prayer, but on the fact that all Christians are enabled to pray ! Our text says, “…and
because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying, “Abba! Father!” Every true Christian, despite their many
challenges to prayer can call on
his /her Abba- Father, because God has sent the Holy Spirit into their hearts.
But before we get to
this great affirmation we want to understand
the context: Paul had been
instrumental in the founding of a number of churches in Galatia, and soon after he had left them,
false teachers (also known as the Judaizers)
had begun to infiltrate and undermine the freedom that these churches had begun to experience in
Christ.[1]
The Judaizers were Jews who believed
that Jesus was Israel's Messiah but they also believed that Gentile converts to Christianity
needed to be circumcised and keep the dietary laws etc. in order to be justified.
The letter to the Galatians is Paul's response to
this very dangerous undermining of the gospel. Paul is
astonished at the seeming ease and speed with which these Judaizers were able to persuade the
Galatians into abandoning the gospel principles which he had so clearly taught them (Gal.1:6,7). He is angry[2]
with them that they
have so easily accepted this false gospel which is, as Paul says, no gospel
at all. In fact, the letter to the Galatians is Paul’s least courteous and
loving letter among all his epistles. He is brimming with indignation. For
Paul, the sum and substance of the Christian faith is faith in Jesus Christ and in His saving work ALONE!
Now please note that
Paul is NOT condemning Moses and obedience to the law as such. He is taking on
these Judaizers who
claimed that Christ ALONE is not
sufficient to save the believer. Paul is condemning the teaching that says that
the believer has to add works (i.e. law keeping) to the sufficient work of
Christ on the cross for our salvation. The
Judaizers said that, in addition to Christ, circumcision and Jewish
food laws and the keeping of certain days had to be added to obtain salvation. Again, for the sake of perspective, Paul is
not saying that Christians should not be obedient in keeping the moral law of
God, BUT he is saying that the keeping of the law is not the standard by which anyone will merit their salvation. And again, let it be said that
the basis of the Christian faith is coming to Christ
through faith ALONE (3:26). This faith is then expressed by being baptized into
Christ and by putting on Christ in our daily walk (3:27), but neither baptism nor
good behaviour form the basis of our
salvation. They are important New Testament expressions, and out-workings,
and extensions of our faith, but faith IN CHRIST ALONE is sufficient for salvation.
Now concerning this
primary theological fact Paul says,
that Christians cannot go on being childish in
their thinking (4:1-3).
It is time to grow up. It is time
to stop being children, who are
enslaved to the elementary principles of the world under the law which
at this time held its sway
for 1300 years. Paul argues that now, in Christ, the full revelation of God has been granted to every believer. Believers are no longer in a
state of childlikeness, under the law
which has been acting as a guardian and
manager, to whom they were enslaved as it were. The truth
is that all God’s children now, having received Christ, having been fully
redeemed from the consequence of
their sinful nature, and being at peace with God, are adopted by God. (Gal.4:5).
By this process they were made members
of the great family of God, and the revelation of that great family awaits them when
they get to heaven[3]!
Now, following that statement on adoption in v.5 we find our text and
thesis in v.6: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
Here then is the basis of all true prayer! Here is the prime reason why prayer is
possible at all!
1. You will immediately notice that the three
persons of the Trinity are mentioned in this text.
God
firstly sends His Son into the world. Secondly, He sends His Spirit into
our hearts. Leon Morris observes that ”the presence of the Spirit in believers is in their
hearts; it is something that happens in
their innermost being and is not a minor disturbance on the surface of life.”[4] Prayer is possible and inevitable because the Tri-une
God comes and lives in the heart
of every true believer!
2. God the Father has taken the initiative in prayer : God has sent the Spirit of his Son
into our hearts. Therefore prayer
comes to us outside of ourselves. Prayer is not
having a conversation with an
imaginary friend. Prayer, biblically speaking is an impulse created in us by God who has given us His Holy Spirit in our hearts. And so
today when we pray, it is important that we pray according to the sufficient
revelation of God, in the
written Word of God, which has been
inspired by the Holy Spirit. (2 Tim 3:16).
The Bible, the ‘outbreathed’ Word of God
in its totality, and with every verse in context, provides us with the knowledge and
theology of prayer. My personal prayer is enriched by the Spirit inspired Word of God, and therefore I
would strongly counsel you that you never start prayer without saturating your prayer in your meditation
upon the Scriptures. Praying according to the will of God means praying God’s thoughts after Him. What does all this imply for our understanding
of prayer? Who changes what through
prayer? The idea of a God who needs to be persuaded by our prayers has no biblical warrant. Again, it is important that we realise that good theology is essential to biblical prayer. If we are to ask for anything “according to his will” (1 John 5:14), then this does not imply a carte blanche, but we must
refer to his will as revealed in His word.
3. Prayer is possible
because of Jesus. Paul’s
frequent
description of believers being “in
Christ” and “with Christ”
indicates that believers, i.e. all who are in union with Christ by faith (Heb. 10:19-22) have access to the
Father. The Father has accepted the
substitutionary sacrifice of
Jesus whom He loves , on behalf
of every believer. The Father
loves us, because He loves His Son. We are accepted in the Father’s Beloved. That is the essence of our justification by
faith. If the Father always hears the Son, then he always hears those who, in
Christ, are sons. In addition we are
also reminded that we are able to pray because
Jesus continually intercedes for
us. (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25).
4. Prayer is possible because the
Holy Spirit indwells us. In Romans 8:26 we learn that the Holy Spirit helps us in our prayer, particularly
when we do not know how to pray. That is
very comforting. The Holy Spirit in us
directs our prayers. This raises an
important question: What does it mean to
pray in faith? It is sometimes suggested that when our specific prayers are not
answered it is because we do not have enough faith. Passages such as
these become proof texts :
·
According
to your faith, be it done to you (Matt 9:29).
·
Whatever
you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith(Matt
21:22).
·
Whatever
you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will (Mk
11:22).
The teaching that puts faith in a
subjective way is dangerous and
downright discouraging. What if a certain answer does not come in response
to the prayer of my faith ? (e.g. when someone is not healed) . We need to be reminded of what faith is and what it is
not. This is where the place of the Holy
Spirit becomes important. The biblical
truth is that the Holy Spirit in me
directs my faith. This is how it
works .
In the first place we need to understand that our very first prayer for salvation, ‘Lord
save me’ , was by the power of the Holy Spirit who directed us into Christ. We would not have believed if the Spirit of God did not first
remove our blindness and our hatred of God's truth[5] .
Secondly, the Holy Spirit continues
to direct our faith in life, particularly as we look to God
through the lens of scripture, and when we learn to pray,
“Your will be done!” We may
be sure of this always. God is
good. He is committed to His children. He knows what we need, and
from the Lord’s prayer we know
that He is committed to give us everything we need for life: physical , emotional, spiritual. True faith and true prayer is not an emotion or subjectively based
feeling. Our faith is being led by the objective, Holy Spirit
inspired gospel. We pray according to
the Word of God , and as we
pray for the means to the end (safety, food, material needs, healing
etc.), we must be prepared for God's gracious "no", while we trust Him for the best.
Lastly, remember that at the end of
our prayer there is our Abba – Father.
Abba is the Aramaic diminutive form of father -
daddy. Every true child of God is heard and cared for
not by a ‘force out there’ but
by a God of whom Jesus said that He cared for the lilies of the field and
the birds of the air, and much more so
for His beloved children!
Thus, this Trinitarian perspective on
prayer is well summed up in Paul’s
assertion in Gal. 4:6, “And because you
are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba!
Father!” Thank God that He is at the beginning of all prayer. Prayer is possible because Father, Son and Holy Spirit are at work in stirring up prayer in us. Amen!
[1]
This is a very common problem in Paul’s
epistles . As soon as the oversight of a church is gone, the wolves come in very quickly ( see Acts 20 :29-30)
[2] Gal. 1:8,9;
3:1-10; 5:7-15
[3]
Revelation 7 : 9-12;
[4]
Leon Morris : Galatians : Paul’s Charter
of Christian Freedom, IVP , p. 131
[5] John 6:37,
44-45; 16:8-11; Eph. 2:8-9
