Thank you all so much for your kindness, your hunger, your engagement, and your attentiveness. It’s been palpable. I’ve enjoyed the conversations between the sessions with Henry and others, and I pray that God would give us all some special energy here.

The basic, four-part outline for this session is that we will focus on some principles related to prayer, then practical aspects of it, and then we’ll talk about some principles related to fellowship and some practical efforts to move it out. I’m going to go through some of these slides pretty quickly. There are going to be some others I’ll just skip as we go. Don’t worry about that. I’m telling you ahead of time. You can just ignore it when I skip over it. I’m doing some triage. I want to make sure we get to the most important things in our few minutes.

Principles of Prayer

Let me start with some principles of Christian prayer as we approach the topic. And as we do so here, it’s not in a vacuum; it’s in light of God speaking first.

First, God speaks in his word, the “chief” or the “soul” of the means of grace. Prayer is not a conversation we start. It’s not that we just say, “Oh, I’m going to pray.” God starts it by first revealing himself. We pray in light of what we implicitly or explicitly know and think about God.

Second, God not only speaks and reveals himself, but he listens. Our Father wants to hear from us as his children. That’s amazing. The talking God, the creating God, the all-powerful God stops and stoops. He wants it to be a relationship with his children. He wants to hear from us in prayer.

Third, the great purpose of prayer is not possessions or things that we might obtain but nearness to God himself, closeness to God himself, and joy in God himself. It’s so that we might know him and experience him. I love this quote from C.S. Lewis:

Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence, vision, and enjoyment of God its bread and wine.

The Ground of Our Confidence

Fourth, our having the Father’s ear is as sure as our having his Son. It is the Son, our great high priest who, through his work, ascension, and ongoing mediation, obtains for us the certainty of having our Father’s ear all the more than King David. Let me give you these two pillar texts from the Book of Hebrews. Remember I told you we got this outline from Hebrews? We already did a Hebrews text, and we’re going to see these great fellowship texts from Hebrews in a few minutes as well. These are two texts about approaching the throne. We’ll say more about this tomorrow morning for those who are here for the sermon. We’ll talk about how these texts guard the heart of Hebrews.

Hebrews 5–7 is about his person as high priest, and Hebrews 8–10 is about his work as the sacrifice. These two takes go right before and after the heart of the letter, and there’s an amazing echo. You’ll see it:

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14–16)

I don’t take this to be only about prayer, but I take prayer to be at the heart of this. This gathers up the instincts of prayer, this idea of drawing to the throne of grace with confidence to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. In time of need, we cry out for God’s help, cry out for mercy, and cry out for grace. It’s a great prayer text among other things.

And here’s the echo of it in Hebrews 10:19–23:

Brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

So, we have confidence to approach the throne. There’s this forward movement language that Clint used about closing with Christ, this movement of the soul toward Jesus. That’s one part of it. The other part is holding fast — not being pushed back, not being shaken by the world, by various pressures, and by our own unbelief and sin. It’s about not falling back but holding fast, and then leaning in, drawing near, and closing with Christ. This happens because of what the great high priest has achieved for us. Because he is ours and we have him by faith, we can approach the throne with confidence. So, we come with a kind of humble boldness because of Jesus.

The Pattern of Prayer

Fifth, the typical pattern of Christian prayer is to the Father through the Son. We saw that through-ness even as we talked about Jesus going through the heavens, through the curtain into God’s Holy of Holies. There’s a through that comes with the movement of our great high priest into heaven. It’s through the Son and in the Spirit.

The programmatic text on this typical pattern of “to the Father through the Son in the Spirit” is Ephesians 2:18. We talked earlier about how that Jew and Gentile reality is so spectacular and we take it for granted because we’re Gentiles. We assume that, but this is amazing:

For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. (Ephesians 2:18)

So, it’s to the Father, through him the Son, and in the Spirit. You might ask, “Does this mean that it’s okay to pray to Jesus?” Answer, yes. He’s God. A good litmus test on whether you think he’s really God is whether you can pray to him or not. You can pray to Jesus, absolutely. Can you pray to the Spirit? Yes, he’s God.

Now, there’s an amazing thing here. We, with our egalitarian impulses and sentiments, as Gavin talked about, might think, “Oh, I have to balance this thing out. So let me tabulate how many prayers I pray to the Spirit, how many prayers I pray to Jesus, and how many prayers I pray to the Father.” That’s just not the pattern in the Bible or the New Testament. The Biblical proportion is that there’s a particular order here. It’s typically to the Father through the Son in the Spirit. You can pray to the Son, and you can pray to the Spirit. But the typical pattern — the healthy, normal balanced pattern — isn’t that way. Rather, the Son’s work is accented as he’s the one who became human, suffered, and died for us. He’s a great high priest. It’s through him. And the Holy Spirit dwells in us, so prayer is in him. He’s in us, inspiring us and moving us to prayer.

Praying in the Spirit

Let me just say something here about prayer in the Spirit. Now this is pretty theological. I know we’re getting toward practicals. This is theological and for me, this is deeply encouraging. I don’t want to be on my own in prayer. When do I just think of it on my own or muster my own strength? I want to be led, I want to be prompted, and I want to be inspired even on a deeper level than I myself can sense, so I take great comfort in having the gift of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 6:17–18 says:

[Take] the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit . . .

This language speaks of “praying in the Spirit.” That’s what we’re getting at. Let me give you another text about praying in the Spirit because we’re talking about prayer. It’s at the end of Jude:

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith . . . (Jude 20)

You can talk about habits of grace there. That’s an application. How would you build yourself up in your most holy faith? I think I’d probably answer, “Through the word, fellowship, and prayer.” That would be my summary. Something like that. Jude continues:


But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit . . . (Jude 20)

What does it mean to pray in the Spirit? Does this mean we are going into some kind of trance or something? Or is this someone indwelt by the Spirit, being prompted by the Spirit, and being led and guided by the Spirit? Let’s put one more text with it:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness (our flesh, our finitude, our sin). For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26–27)

I take this to be the Spirit leading us and prompting us in those moments when we don’t know what to do, maybe there’s some kind of persecution or some kind of suffering. We might think, “Should I pray right now for deliverance, or should I be praying for perseverance?” There is not a right answer to that in every situation. It’s good to have the Holy Spirit to help us.

The Double Depth of the Spirit

There is a recent book by a theologian I greatly appreciate, Fred Sanders. The book is called The Holy Spirit: An Introduction. He has a great section here on Romans 8 and what he calls the “double depth” of the Spirit. This is theological, but I find it greatly encouraging. Let me read this for you. If you find it difficult to grasp, that’s okay. Just know I’m really encouraged by it, and I think it should make you excited to pray. Then we’ll move on to practicals. He’s talking about Romans 8:

The above text is not about the Holy Spirit being a creature who groans and prays to God alongside us. Instead, it is about God drawing so close to us that he supports and empowers our prayers at a level deeper than we can even articulate. Indeed, the Holy Spirit is closer to us than we are to ourselves because while parts of our inner life may be inaccessible even to our own minds, none of them are closed off to the Holy Spirit. He is both deep within God as God himself and also deep within creatures. He indwells the Father and he indwells the children. Because he is simultaneously in the heart of God and in the heart of believers, Scripture routinely transfers to him certain attributes that are either properly human or in some way arise at the very point where the human encounter with the divine happens.

The Holy Spirit is the person of the Godhead who indwells us. He is poured out on us, and he is in us at our very depths. He is also in the very depths of God. This is where Scripture usually attributes to him various aspects of where our spirit meets with God’s own Spirit. I think there are several texts in the New Testament where we don’t quite know whether to capitalize Spirit or make it lowercase. We could think, “Does that refer to the human spirit or the divine spirit?” I think the answer is that it’s both. It’s the Spirit so deep in us that where the difference between our spirit and the Spirit is, we may not even be able to discern. He is indwelling us, which relates particularly to prayer because of these texts about praying in the Spirit.

When we talked about the word as one of the means of grace, there’s a particular connection to the Son because Jesus is God’s Word. And with prayer, there’s a particular connection with the person of the Spirit. It’s not that he is always the one or even usually the one who is consciously addressed, but he’s the one at work in us, willing and working for God’s good pleasure. Now let’s talk about cultivating habits of prayer.

Habits of Prayer

I have three categories here from biblical texts: in secret, without ceasing, and with company. In secret is your own private prayer. Without ceasing is that cluster of texts that say things like “never stop praying.” We have to look at those if we’re going to talk about prayer. And then we’ll talk about prayer with company (with others), which leads us into our discussion of fellowship.

Secret Prayer

Here’s the marquee text here on praying in secret. This is Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount:

When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:5–6)

This is not talking about all prayer. This is not saying that pastors should never pray in church gatherings or that when you get together you should never pray with others. It’s a very important part of the Christian life. This is about what the heart is like in prayer. Are you doing this to be seen by others? Are you putting on a show with your prayers? What’s the reward you want? Your Father who sees in secret will reward you. With what? I think it’s himself first and foremost. Do you want him in prayer? Do you mean to draw close to him in prayer? Secret prayer is where we start as Jesus leads us.

In Light of the Scriptures

Here are some thoughts for secret prayer. First, having first heard God’s word, pray in light of his word. I’m just picking up where we were in the last section. We talked about beginning with the Bible, moving to meditation, and then polishing with prayer, instead of having some Bible reading, checking that box, and pivoting pretty hard to just praying disconnected things. That’s not very much a relationship. We move from hearing him, having it go deep in our souls in meditation, lingering over what he has to say, and then in light of what he says in his word, praying back to him and letting that be the sweet theme of your prayers.

In my own personal time in the morning, I’m going to pray for some of the same people every day — my wife, my four kids, my fellow pastors, my congregation, my coworkers at Desiring God, the hope of church plants, and world missions. I’m going to pray for some of the same stuff, but instead of just praying for those things in the same old way every day, I want the text in front of me. I’m asking, “What is God saying this morning to me by his Spirit in his word? How about if that informs how I pray for my wife today, what I ask God to do in her life, how I pray for myself, and how I pray for my kids?” I work out in these concentric circles.

Once you’ve meditated on a verse or phrase or biblical concept for a few moments, turn it to prayer. We talked about prayer being the proper issue. Rather than pivoting to lists, pray through the text you’ve meditated on. Turn its concepts, promises, and warnings into prayers for yourself, your spouse, your church, your family, your friends, co-workers, neighbors, and the nations, kind of working out in concentric circles like that. Take God’s leading in meditation as his word to you today and his invitation to respond back to him in prayer.

Focus and Clarity

Second, come to prayer with focus and clarity. You might say, “Beware empty phrases and overlong prayers.” If you’ve associated in your mind that prayer is this task and burden that requires you to speak at a certain length and that you haven’t really prayed to God unless it’s been 5 minutes or 10 minutes, or if you’re putting some kind of artificial constraint on it, or if you think that it has to be so long or God’s not going to hear it, that just goes against one of Jesus’s teachings. This is what he said right before the Lord’s prayer. These are the two verses before he prays the Lord’s prayer. He says:

When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. (Matthew 6:7)

We’re not earning his ear with many words. We are betraying that we don’t understand how we have his ear if we think we earn it with many words. He continues:

Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this . . . (Matthew 6:8)

And do you know how long Jesus prays? It’s like 50 words. You would be hard-pressed in the circles I’m in to hear someone do that. I’m critiquing myself here too. I’m talking about my small group, my church, and Desiring God. Everywhere I go, if somebody prays only 50 words, we might think, “Oh, it’s pretty shallow. That was a pretty short prayer.”

Well, that was the same length as the Lord’s prayer. I’m not saying we have to reduce them all to 50 words. But brothers and sisters, if we have the access that we do because of the worthiness of Jesus, his achievements, what he deserves, and what he’s earned for us as a high priest, we don’t have to qualify ourselves with many words. We can come with focus, with clarity, and even with brevity. If God leads you to more words, wonderful. If the Holy Spirit is stirring in you more words, then amen. Don’t have an artificial constraint on how long your prayers need to be to qualify.

Start with Adoration

Third, lead with adoration. Practically, I think this is such a need. I need this regular reminder. I think many in our churches need this regular reminder. We call it prayer. Prayer means “to ask” or “to request.” It’s very easy for us to come as a creature to the Creator to ask for stuff, right? I get that. We’re going to do that. We do that very naturally. Oh, how our prayers can be adjusted, how our own joy can be filled, and how our perspective can be put right by coming first to adore our God. He is worthy of our adoration. That is a great place to start your prayers. And then in light of adoring him, coming before him and expressing his glory — some attribute that would be worth praising — it’s going to lead naturally into confession and how I don’t measure up.

When Jesus starts the Lord’s prayer, he says:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. (Matthew 6:9)

He doesn’t go straight into the daily bread or forgiveness. He starts by saying, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done . . .” Here’s an example from Acts 4. They’ve heard about the persecution and Peter and John being released from prison. This is not Acts 2 where we started in the honeymoon period. The church is being persecuted. They hear about it, and this early church lifts their voice together to God, and they don’t start with, “Deliver, deliver, deliver! Bring them out of prison and save us from persecution! Help make our lives easy and comfortable!” Instead, they start with, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them . . .” (Acts 4:24).

“The great purpose of prayer is not possessions or things that we might obtain but nearness to God himself.”

They rehearse his glory, and praising him reminds them who they’re praying to. Their prayer is being adjusted as they rehearse his glory and his attributes. It’s not all of it, but a phrase or two or three. There are a few expressions of adoration. And then they also mention “who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit . . .” (Acts 4:25), and they go on to quote Psalm 2. They begin their prayer with adoration and with rehearsing Scripture, which then aligns their prayer with praying for perseverance rather than easy delivery.

They don’t pray for comfort; they pray for gospel advance, for boldness in their speech, and for endurance under obstacles, not swift delivery in the circumstances. Sometimes in speaking about prayer we’ll talk about A.C.T.S. — adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and then supplication, which is the prayer part of prayer. The asking is about coming humbly as a creature, redeemed before our creator, to ask him for our various needs. I find it very helpful to often remind myself of this acronym (A.C.T.S.). I know maybe you’ve heard it before, and it might seem like old hat, but I find it very helpful to work through adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication.

Praying Spiritual Prayers

Fourth, seek to pray spiritual prayers. It’s very easy and natural to pray for non-spiritual things. That’s okay. God wants us to pray for whatever concerns we have, but Paul’s example is so helpful in reminding us of the spiritual effects. We want to pray for ourselves, for the inner man, for the inner person of our spouse, our kids, our friends, and the people at church and in our work. Ephesians 1:16 says:

I do not seek to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers . . . (Ephesians 1:16)

What’s he going to pray? Will he pray, “May God deliver you from any inconvenience and discomfort”? He continues:

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe . . . (Ephesians 1:17–19)

This is one of those instances of “spirit” where it could be lowercase or it could be uppercase. It’s probably together. Do you know those things? If God answers that prayer, circumstances are going to be just okay over time. It’s going to be all right over time.

Philippians 1:9–10 says:

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent . . .

He wants them to become a kind of discerning people. He’s not just saying, “My prayer is that you will follow all 10 of the commandments.” He wants the inner person changed. He wants there to be a kind of wisdom developed in the person so that they may approve what is excellent. As we walk through life, we don’t mainly encounter situations where we say, “Oh, that’s clearly right and that’s clearly wrong.” We need wisdom in these junctures. We need to approve what is excellent based on having discernment because the Holy Spirit has been working on us, shaping us, and molding us in the inner person so that, as he continues:

That you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:10–11)

This is about praying spiritual prayers for ourselves, our friends, and our families so that God would be at work on the heart.

Praying Out Loud

Fifth, pray out loud or in writing to formulate and finish thoughts. Many times in the past I have been greatly helped by writing out prayers. Most recently, I have been praying out loud by myself. One of the things I realized recently is how often my thoughts are prone to drift. When I’m reading my Bible quietly, and praying, how easy is it for my thoughts to drift elsewhere when I’m not formulating the words?

This has been something I found very helpful. Even if my family is in the house elsewhere, I can quietly whisper the words or say them in a low voice so that it doesn’t disturb other people or wake other people up. My older kids are now in school and I’ll be at the house by myself. I’m in an office by myself, and I can pray out loud. I find this to be very helpful. Writing it down just to finish formulating those thoughts can be helpful too.

The Weight of Our Burdens

Sixth, feel the weight of your burden. This is an image I go to often. It’s from 1 Peter 5. In prayer, feel the weight of your burdens. You’re not ignoring them, you’re not running from them, you’re coming to God with them. There’s that moment in calling them to mind, in bringing them before him that you’re feeling those burdens afresh. You’re not neglecting them or suppressing them. You’re offering them up. You feel that weight, and then you roll them onto his broad shoulders. That’s what we’re doing in prayer.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6–7)

I take this to be prayer language. Cast your anxieties on him. His shoulders can handle every single one of them. And know that he cares for you. He has demonstrated in his Son, in what he has accomplished for us, that he cares. We can roll our burdens onto his shoulders.

Ceaseless Prayer

How about this category of praying without ceasing? Some of the texts say things like, “Pray without ceasing” (2 Thessalonians 5:17), “Be constant in prayer” (Romans 12:12), “Continue steadfastly in prayer” (Colossians 4:2), and, “Praying at all times in the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:18).

This is how I take these. Here’s one thing that it’s not: It doesn’t mean that you always are praying consciously and you never stop. God means for us to get up off our knees and live our lives, to have conversations where we engage with each other, to have the center of our attention be on another person, a biblical text, or the work he’s called us to do. And yet, even as our focus is on the particular thing we’re doing and called to at the moment, prayer can be on the horizon. We could totally turn our back on the horizon or we could be pointed in the same way that there’s an easy shift from a focus here to a word of prayer.

That’s one way to take it. Throughout the day we should have a kind of posture and spirit to return to prayer. Even if it’s, “Lord help,” like a Nehemiah prayer. In the moment when he was in front of the king, he said something like, “God help.” And God helped him. We do those kinds of prayers throughout the day in the car, when there’s space we go to prayer maybe more often than we go to our phone. Another way to take it is to not give up, to endure, to persist, and to keep praying those prayers for those that we love and for ourselves and not give up on God because he didn’t answer right away in our timetable. We saw this text where Peter says “at the proper time” (1 Peter 5:7).

I’ll speak for myself. I’m not very good at gauging God’s perfect timing. He has his proper time, and do you know what? Over and over again as I look back, he hasn’t failed me yet on his timing, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been uncomfortable and difficult and demanded much patience on the front end. But looking back on the back end, his timing was right. So he would have us to continue, to be constant in prayer, to continue steadfastly, and to not give up on bringing our requests before him.

Public Prayer

I think about praying with company — with others in the fellowship — as the high point. It’s not to minimize our prayers in secret with God, but it’s a special thing to coordinate schedules. You’re in the same time and place. There are some added benefits. There are some added blessings when God’s people gather together in a spirit of prayer. So I think about this as the high point.

Jesus prayed with his men, and the early church prayed together. My encouragement would be to make it regular. Is there some kind of regular corporate or company prayer, some kind of fellowship of prayer in your life? Maybe it’s family, or maybe it’s some kind of small-group prayer meeting here at the church or a gathering for the office. Whatever it is, have some kind of rhythm of corporate prayer that doesn’t only happen spontaneously. Let’s let it happen spontaneously as much as possible, but we should have a kind of habit of corporate prayer. Do you have a habit of corporate prayer?

Then my counsel in those contexts, given that God speaks first, would be that a great way to start a prayer gathering is with a text of Scripture. Nobody needs to give a sermon. They don’t have to explain it long. You can pick a short passage, read it, and then say, “Let’s pray.”

Another thing would be community group life. I don’t know how much you guys do small groups. We do some small groups at our church, and I know the temptation is to say, “All right, let’s pray. Does anybody have any requests?” Let’s say we have like 30 minutes. We spend about 28 minutes sharing requests, and then we think, “Well, does anybody want to shut this down quickly with a hurried prayer?”

One thing you can do is start with Scripture and teach people about this in your fellowship of prayer. You can say, “You know what? God’s okay if you put a little extra explanation as you pray so that others around can know what you’re talking about. Let’s turn our requests Godward. Let’s maybe limit how much we speak horizontally, and let’s all address them to God with each other in mind.” We can encourage focus, and not go on and on.

But then also, when you pray corporately, it’s not the same thing as just praying privately. When I pray in secret, it’s me and it’s very personal. But when I’m praying with others it’s we and us. There may be some first-person singular in there, but it’s okay. God’s aware that you’re praying with other people listening. You can address them and him at the same time. I think there’s something very sanctifying about our gathering together, addressing him in our prayers, and having each other in mind. We’re not trying to impress each other. We’re trying to love each other, keep each other informed, and express our prayers in such a way that other hearts can join with us and God and say, “Amen. Yes. That’s right. Amen.”

There are some benefits to praying with the company. I’ll skip that for now because of our time, but if you want to look into that further you can read my book.

Fasting as a Habit of Grace

Let me say a quick word about fasting. At no place in all of his 13 letters does Paul command Christians to fast, and neither does Peter or John. It isn’t commanded anywhere in the New Testament. There’s no command to fast. And yet for 2000 years, Christians have fasted — at least until recently, right? No, there are still people who fast today. I’m trying to commend it. One expression among others of healthy, vibrant Christians and churches has been the practice of fasting. However much it may seem to be a lost art today, fasting has endured for two millennia as a means of Christ’s ongoing grace for his church. Why then if Christians are not commanded to fast, do we fast? Jesus is our example. He fasted in the wilderness for 40 days. I don’t think his fast was supernatural. I think he did that in his humanity. But he fasted. Clearly, Jesus fasted.

In Matthew 6:16, he says, “When you fast . . .” not, “If you fast.” He’s talking about secret fasting. In Matthew 9:15, he says, “Then they will fast,” and he’s talking about his disciples. When the bridegroom is taken from them, then they will fast. So without commanding it, he’s saying they will fast, and it’s when, not if. And what do we see in the early church? They fasted.

Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. (Acts 13:1–3)

They were worshiping with fasting, seeking God’s special guidance, asking, “What’s next for us as a church in Antioch? God has given us so much grace. He’s doing this work in Antioch. What’s next? By abstaining from food, let’s focus our desires for God’s leading and God’s guidance.” God answered. It’s a kind of turbo boost, magnifier, or amplifier of prayer.

Acts 14:23 says:

And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Overall, the New Testament may have little to say about fasting, but what it does say is important. In what it doesn’t say, it leans heavily on the Old Testament. The Hebrew Scriptures do not speak the final word on fasting, but they are vital in preparing us to hear a final word from Christ.

Fasting in the Old Testament

Now, because I don’t want to short shrift fellowship, I’m not going to go through this section on my summary of fasting in the Old Testament. I’ll tell you the high points. There are three purposes of fasting in the Old Testament.

First, there’s an inward focus to express repentance. Several texts demonstrate fasts for repentance. Some sin is freshly brought into view individually or corporately, and they fast to express the intensity of their sadness and their repentance.

Second, there is an outward fasting. This would be to grieve hard providences. Fasting can give voice to mourning, grieving, and lamenting difficult providences in our lives. Some texts go with that.

Third, there is fasting that is forward-looking. It’s seeking God’s favor and asking God for something — for safe passage and the journey back to Jerusalem in Nehemiah and for God’s rescue in the Book of Esther. This is a fast to ask God to do something. It’s always a prayerful purpose. It’s always God’s word. Fasting is a handmaiden of prayer. It helps prayer. And the thing about fasting is that God didn’t make us to go without food indefinitely, so it’s a special measure. You can’t fast every day. As much as we may want to turbo-boost all of our prayers, you have to do some spiritual triage.

You have the normal things that you pray for, and then you come to these extraordinary moments in the Christian life and you think, “God, I want to put a microphone on this prayer. This one is a little deeper. This one is a little extraordinary. It’s not daily bread. It’s not daily prayer. This is a little bit more.” Fasting is a way of expressing that heart and that desperation. It’s saying, “God, would you show up? Would you help here? I can’t fast like this every meal. I’m doing this as a special measure to seek your favor and seek your face in this instance.”

So, brothers and sisters, don’t leave the mic unused. Do your daily, ordinary prayers, and when in the course of your lives you come into these special moments of desperation, God has given us a particular means of grace for amplifying our prayer, so to speak.

The Grace of Fellowship

Let’s talk about fellowship now as we finish up. Fellowship is about belonging to his body. Life, health, and perseverance in the Christian faith is a community project. Our hearts harden and our faith fails as we distance ourselves from the fellowship. God makes us a means of grace to each other in the covenant fellowship of the local church. This is so vital. Some of us felt this afresh and experienced it anew during the pandemic with social distancing, the various closures, and the various difficulties of dealing with a global pandemic. Some got out of habit with the church and they haven’t come back. Others got out of healthy patterns and they’ve come back, but they’ve been floundering and they’re sluggish. There are new categories for irregularity and compromised commitment because of it. Others felt the lack of this means of grace in our time apart and experienced it with all the more appreciation once we were back together.

This was almost four years back in 2020. Some people were saying we would never be in a room like this again in this proximity. Well, they were wrong. Here we are, right? This is amazing. It feels more amazing to me now than it did four years ago because of that absence. I hope it’s that way for you. Don’t forget it too quickly. Let that absence make the heart grow fonder for this means of grace that we have in each other’s life. It’s wonderful to be in the same room, to be in the same space, not just be reduced to two dimensions through digital screens, but to inhabit the same space.

The word in Acts 2:42 translated as “fellowship” (koinonia) is one of those Greek words that often gets talked about in churches. It means “the commonness.” If common is an adjective, commonness is the noun. It’s making that idea of common into a noun. It means “commonality,” “commonness,” or, “fellowship.” It has to do with what we have or share in common. First and foremost, we have Jesus in common, which is far more important than sharing the same blood biologically, or sharing the same complexion. That’s just so shallow. Jesus is what we have in common. We have the Father and the Son in common. We have his body and blood in common (1 Corinthians 10). We have the Holy Spirit in common. The Holy Spirit is not only deep in us and deep in God, but deep in fellow believers, which should give us a lot of encouragement and hope about the possibility of true unity among Christian brothers and sisters. That’s the context in Philippians 2.

We share our energy and our goods. We want to help each other and we want to benefit each other when we have various needs in the life of our church, in praying for each other, in speaking counsel, in providing meals, and in providing other services that would meet needs. It’s really important that we also share the gospel mission. Sometimes the language of fellowship can almost have this sense of being in a circle having pizza and pop, and having a good old time with Christians. If it’s with people at work, it’s a party. But if you’re hanging out with Christians and having fun, then it’s fellowship.

J.R.R. Tolkien called his first book The Fellowship of the Ring. They weren’t sitting around just watching a good, clean Christian movie, having popcorn, and just hanging out together. They had a mission: Get the ring to Mount Doom. That’s fellowship. They shared the most important thing in common that brought them together. Essential in Christian fellowship is our sharing the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and also sharing their mission — the mission of God in the world that we are in. We are on mission. That includes our finances. Several texts talk about the fellowship of contributing, like helping Paul’s ministry forward among the nations. That gospel mission dynamic is important in the fellowship. Jesus is the one who established his church and promises to build it. He calls the church his body. When Saul is ravaging the church, he says, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4). The church is God’s household.

Living in God’s Household

Consider these twin texts on fellowship. This is where we will finish up along with a word about baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Hebrews 3:12–13 says:

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

So, in the local church, in our covenant fellowship together, we are our brother’s keeper, our sister’s keeper. Hear that language of any. Don’t let any fall through the cracks. Let none be hardened. I take the word “today” as a call for regular vigilance and attentiveness. I don’t think it means everybody needs to show up at the church to have some kind of spiritual interview every single day, or that your small group or accountability group needs to meet every single day. I do think it means that we should have these regular checkpoints in our lives, these kinds of friendships. It could be small groups, prayer groups, or people that we text with to keep in touch so that we don’t go too long without there being some kind of spiritual check. We should be saying, “Can I check on you? Can you check on me? How are you doing? How can I love you? How can I bless you? Here’s how I’m struggling. Would you pray for me?”

Consider the power of our words in Christian perseverance. Look at this word “exhort.” What do you do? You begin to spot some pattern, some habit, some coldness, some stubbornness in the heart of a fellow believer, and what’s the magic that you do? What’s the miracle that you pursue? You pursue words, because they have these holes in the side of their head, and faith comes from hearing. Christianity, which is a very word-based and word-centered faith, would use the miracle of our words. God means to use the miracle of your words to help evil, unbelieving hearts, to keep them from falling away from the living God. And when you’re in the tough spot somebody else could be a backstop for you. Somebody else would speak words of grace into your life to keep you from coasting, to keep you from having a hard heart.

The amazing thing about this means of grace is how it works both ways. We hear God’s voice in our brother’s voice, and we want to be God’s voice to our brother and our sister. In fellowship, we’re not only receiving God’s means of grace through others, but we’re also seeking to be God’s means of grace to others in the life of the local church.

Speaking the Truth in Love

Ephesians 4:15–16 is so good on this:

Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Ephesians 4:29 also says:

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Our words are so important. This is a vital means of grace in our Christian lives. We should pursue relationships where people would do this for us. Do you have friends and family who will speak the truth and love, who will build you up as fits the occasion that they would give grace to you in the moment when you need it? And do you seek to be this for somebody else? Do you look past your nose and look past your own life so that you can speak into somebody else’s life and ask hard questions? Can you speak a word into their life to help bring about a warmness and a softness of soul rather than hardness?

Provoking One Another to Love

Hebrews 10:24–25 says:

Let us consider how to stir up (provoke) one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

That’s so similar to Hebrews 3. The many are watching out for the some, and they look past themselves to the needs of others. There isn’t a how here in the original. The translation gives a how — “Let us consider how” — but it literally says, “Let us consider one another unto the provoking of love and good deeds.” What’s assumed here is that you have to know one another. You don’t just grab some stock phrase as if you’re going to say this to everybody. Remember, we just talked about “building up as fits the occasion.” This presumes a kind of relational knowledge, familiarity, and depth that you can speak a word of grace into someone’s life that very few other people can because they’re not known by so many other people.

There are people in our lives who know us and can speak a fitting word into our lives like nobody else can. Being grace to those who hear in the meeting together is vital. It’s our single most important habit. When we gather as a church and we come together for fellowship, we have the interactions before and after, we pray together, and we praise together. And we do all that in response to the word.

God speaks to us in the word heard together in the preaching. As we’re led in the call of worship, as we’re led in Scripture reading, as we’re led in prayer, we all sit together under the word. We respond in corporate praise and prayer and do it all together. The corporate gathering is an amazing coming together of all these means of grace that we’ve been talking about. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue our own Bible study, our own Bible meditation, and prayer on our own, but do not neglect the assembling together. It’s an important moment in all of our lives.

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper

I’m finishing here with the Lord’s Supper. We just said the single most important habit for Christians is active covenant membership. That’s not only on Sunday mornings, but whatever the course and structure or community life together looks like in our church we want to be active in that. We are cultivating and keeping relationships in which we put grace in each other’s hearts through words that fit the occasion, and we also have a chance to meet physical needs through generosity and love.

Finally, we come to the Lord’s Supper and baptism. This is about improving your baptism and nourishing your soul at the table. Improving your baptism is language from the Westminster Confession of Faith. The thought here is that baptism is a means of grace to our soul when we look in faith, and when we watch it, witness it, and engage it from faith as we would hearing the preached word. Don’t think that when there’s baptism in the church you should just sit that out. Don’t think, “I got baptized a long time ago. I’m here twiddling my thumbs while this next baptism happens.” Rather, this is a chance for you to rehearse what God’s done in your life. That’s true of you. You were dead in your sins. He put you under the water and raised you with Christ. There’s a chance to look on in faith and have baptism be a means of ongoing grace in your life as we engage.

It’s the same with the Lord’s table. When we come to the Lord’s table, we come in faith. We come receiving. Hopefully, we receive the table with the same kind of faith in which we receive the word heard in preaching. At the table, we have the word edible, smellable, touchable, and tastable. The word comes to us in the elements and we receive them in faith. And as we receive them in faith, that doesn’t leave us unchanged. We grow in grace. We’re nourished by the elements when we receive them in faith.