Your Best Prayer Partner - The Holy Spirit

Scripture: Romans 8:26-28; Jude verse 20; Ephesians 6:10-18

Theme: Prayer

Title: Your Best Prayer Partner – The Holy Spirit

INTRO:

Grace and peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

The Bible tells us that two are better than one:

We see this spelled out in the book of Genesis with Adam. After Adam was created, the LORD decided that it was not good for Adam to be the only human being on the earth. So the LORD made a help mate for him. The Bible tells us that Adam called his helpmate a woman and gave her the name, Eve.

Later on King Solomon also testified that two are better than one:

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (NIV)

9 Two are better than one,

because they have a good return for their labor:

10 If either of them falls down,

one can help the other up.

But pity anyone who falls

and has no one to help them up.

And throughout history we have watched as some amazing inventions and discoveries have been made by two people coming together and working with each other side by side. Some of the greatest partnerships in history have been amazing:

+Abraham and Sarah – the Beginning of the Jewish Faith

+Paul and Barnabas – Gentile Missions Team

+Wilber and Orville Wright - First Successful Airplane

+William Procter and James Gamble – numerous inventions and products

+Bill Gates and Paul Allen - Microsoft

+Louis and Marie Pasteur - originated the process of pasteurization and developed vaccines against anthrax and rabies.

Today, I want to talk to you about an amazing partnership that we can all enjoy. It is a partnership that if we allow it, can not only transform our lives but the very atmosphere in which we live. It is the partnership that can exist between us and the Holy Spirit; especially in the area of prayer. The greatest prayer partner any of us can have is God’s Holy Spirit.

I believe we would all agree that one of the greatest privileges that any Born Again Believer can enjoy in this life is being able to communicate with the Lord God Almighty through prayer.

I believe that we would all agree that one of the greatest services that any Born Again Believer can participate in is being a prayer warrior for your family, friends and for the world.

But I also believe that we also agree that it is not always easy at times to pray. When we pray we begin to fully understand what it means to do battle with the world, with our own flesh and with evil (the devil and all his demons).

The Early Church understood the power of prayer. The Early Church was victorious not because it had great numbers, a big checkbook or had powerful political clout. It didn’t have great numbers at the beginning. It didn’t have a big check book and as far as political clout it had little to none.

The Early Church was victorious because they learned how to lean into the Holy Spirit. They learned how to partner in prayer with the Holy Spirit. They prayed in the Spirit and as a result saw people radically healed, prison doors opened, thousands of people coming to faith and entire communities transformed.

Again, this was not because they had great numbers, a big checkbook or political clout. It was because they partnered in prayer with the HOLY SPIRIT and were able to line up their prayers with the perfect will of God.

This morning, I want to share with you some ways that we can partner with the Holy Spirit in our prayer lives.

I. The first thing we can do is acknowledge that we need the Holy Spirit as Our Prayer Partner

Praying is not foreign to us. Most of us have turned to prayer over and over again as we have faced one sort of trouble after another. We have been broken, knocked down, defeated, lost a loved one, experienced a heart ache, faced a bad medical report, lost hope, encountered enemies and faced our share of trials and tribulations. We have found ourselves confused, anxiety ridden and at time almost overcome with depression.

It is during those times that we have reached out to God in prayer. We have tried to compose some type of prayer that would bring help, healing, reconciliation, grace, forgiveness, peace, deliverance and relief.

During those times have we ever thought about asking the Holy Spirit for His help?

We know that the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit is our Teacher, our Comforter and our Guide. But are we aware that one of the greatest things that the Holy Spirit wants to do in our lives is to be our prayer partner?

Are we aware as we struggle at times for the right words and as we struggle to fight our flesh, the world and the devil that we have the greatest prayer partner in all of creation?