What Does It Mean to Pray in the Spirit？

That's the way you pray when you are praying out of the gospel. There's a connection I'm going to make now. When you're praying that way, that is the Holy Spirit is energizing, animating, guiding, informing, releasing, freeing for prayer, you're praying out of reliance on Christ in the gospel when that's happening. We are trusting God to love us, accept us, help us by His Spirit for Christ's sake alone. If you're coming to pray and you think, okay, He died for me, He provided me with the righteousness, He took my sin, He gave me His righteousness, I'm totally acceptable to God in this moment, though I've sinned many times this morning, and I'm going to trust His love for me, His acceptance of me, His approval of me in Christ, and in that trust, the Spirit of God flows. That's where He works. He's moving along the channels of faith in the gospel. The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ in the gospel. Therefore, when your heart is leaning on the gospel, praising Christ as taking your sin and providing your righteousness, the Spirit is there. So when you ask, how do I pray in the Spirit? The answer is, I pray in reliance upon God's love for me, proved and purchased in the death of Jesus on my behalf. Listen to this key verse, Galatians 3, 5. Does He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? And the answer is clear. It's by hearing with faith, not works of the law. So let's make it a statement instead of a question. God supplies the Spirit to us and works miracles in us and through us, not when we try to win that kind of power by works of the law that show ourselves meritorious and deserving, but when we hear gospel promises and believe them. Faith. The gospel is, for Christ's sake alone, God is for you. For Christ's sake alone, God purchased everything for you. For Christ's sake alone, He is 100% on your side. You believe that because of Christ, not because of yourself or your mourning. Good morning? No. Bad morning? No. That's not the basis. Christ is the basis. I'm believing it. And at that moment, the Holy Spirit is flowing in and through that faith. And you pray in Him, in that faith. This is how the gospel relates to our praying in the Spirit. We don't deserve His help, do we? We don't deserve the Holy Spirit to help us. Paul says He helps us in our weakness when we pray. We don't deserve to have His help. Well then, how do we get it? We get it because of the gospel. We don't deserve anything. The only reason we get anything good from God is because Christ bought it for us, and we get it freely because of His purchase. So, not by works, but by faith. We look to God not as our enemy, not as one who's a frustrated father, not as a person who can never be pleased. This is a lot of you, a lot of you, us. Yeah, He's on my side, but He's always upset with me, because I'm such a loser. There's only one hope at that moment. God, because of Christ alone, is 100% for me. There's the war. Can you believe it? Can you believe it? 100% for me.