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Episode 9 - God Helps You Pray
36 Plays3 months ago
Have you ever lacked motivation to pray? Or thought that you "have to say the right words in order to be heard by God?" Listen to this episode to learn how God helps you to pray.
COYFC is launching prayer groups - in-person and virtually - where people are seeing the power of prayer in changing young people's lives. Would you like to join a group? Email: pray@coyfc.org
The podcast is a ministry of Central Ohio Youth for Christ.
Central Ohio Youth for Christ: www.coyfc.org
Gracehaven: www.gracehavenohio.org
WellSpring Counseling: www.wellspringcolumbus.org
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast Purpose
00:00:10
Speaker
I'm Brian Brooks, your host, and if you're just joining the podcast, great. Go back and listen to episode one to find out why we launched it.
Youth for Christ Prayer Groups
00:00:19
Speaker
We want to invite as many followers of Jesus to pray for our ministry teams at Youth for Christ, serving young people.
00:00:26
Speaker
We're launching prayer groups and people are seeing real
Trust and Faith in Jesus
00:00:29
Speaker
answers to prayer. It's exciting. But we not only want to launch groups, we want to use the podcast to share truth from the Bible with you about how prayer works.
00:00:38
Speaker
to inspire you through real stories of God changing people's lives, and to invite you to journey with us. The next step might be joining a prayer group, to pray for one of our ministries, or a next step might be for you to put your personal trust and belief in Jesus.
Understanding Relationship with God
00:00:55
Speaker
Paul says in Ephesians 1, 13, and 14, In Jesus, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who's the guarantee of our inheritance.
00:01:10
Speaker
Having a relationship with God involves hearing the word of truth or the good news, the gospel of your salvation, that God offers his love and forgiveness and relationship to you free of charge, but at high cost to him.
00:01:25
Speaker
This is why Jesus came to live a life die a death on the cross in our place, in your place and mine. And he rose from the dead, showing that the payment was effective so that we could come to know him, have a relationship with him.
Paul's Teachings on the Holy Spirit
00:01:41
Speaker
But now that you've heard that, you get to decide, do i want to put my personal belief and faith in that? or not? Well, Paul says if you do, you get sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.
00:01:53
Speaker
God himself comes to live inside of you, giving you a confirmation, a guarantee of what's going to happen in the future. And like we're going to see today, the Holy Spirit helps you to pray.
Prayers for Focus and Forgiveness
00:02:05
Speaker
So let's pray and see what God does. Pray along with me. God, I thank you. You know everything. You're involved everywhere, all over the world. And you care about the details of my life.
00:02:18
Speaker
Even as I'm thinking about prayer, God, I need your help to focus. I need your help to convince me to want to even slow down enough to pray. Would you help me? Would you show us that prayer is powerful and effective?
00:02:32
Speaker
For people listening who wonder if they could start a relationship with you, God, help them understand their need to be forgiven by you. Thank you for every person who realizes their need for you and asks you for forgiveness.
00:02:45
Speaker
Amen.
Role of the Holy Spirit in Prayer
00:02:47
Speaker
Main point today God helps you to pray. Sometimes I try and fix complicated things on our car to save money. I'm not a mechanic, but with really intimidating jobs that are beyond an oil change, I call my friend Kevin.
00:03:02
Speaker
If he says, yeah, I'm free, I'll come help you, I'm way much more willing to give it a shot. It's the same thing with prayer, only this time God says he will help us.
00:03:13
Speaker
Most followers of Jesus think they need to devote hours and hours to prayer, or that you have to attain some level of spiritual status to pray. That's not so. You just need to start. Or that prayer means saying the right phrase in order to be heard by God.
00:03:29
Speaker
God is way more personal than that. And he gives us the desire to pray and to follow him. Philippians 2.13 says, It's God who works in you to will and work for his good pleasure.
00:03:42
Speaker
How does God help us to pray? He helps us to pray by giving us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit translates our prayer to God. You know, you might wonder, do I need to say the right thing in order for God to hear me, in order for it to count?
00:03:56
Speaker
No. The Bible says we don't even know what we ought to pray for, but the Holy Spirit helps us with the content of our
Stories of Prayer and Growth
00:04:03
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prayer. The Holy Spirit prays for us as we're trying to pray to God and because the Holy Spirit knows what we need far more than we do.
00:04:12
Speaker
If you spend time in prayer, it won't fail because God helps you pray. I want to share a story, but before that, I want to give you a quick thought. What if you prayed for a student to come to a club meeting, that's one of our YFC meetings, to hear truth about Jesus, to begin a relationship with God, but instead the Holy Spirit knows that for that particular student, they would hear and understand God's offer of forgiveness more if they stayed home scrolling on their phone that night because they're going to come across a crystal clear TikTok video that's going to explain it, and then they're going to understand God's offer of forgiveness.
00:04:52
Speaker
Is it wrong to pray they would come to the meeting? No, that's not wrong. The Holy Spirit knows what needs to happen and can translate our prayer and connect it to a real need. Now to our context.
00:05:03
Speaker
We began campus life in a suburb of Columbus before COVID. We went through a relaunch coming out of the pandemic. We had a middle school group where the main group of students weren't that interested in spiritual things.
00:05:15
Speaker
They were effectively disrupting the time, making it difficult to connect with other students. Well, this ministry team tried ah to lead the students, get them into spiritual things. They debated about what to do, prayed for growth. Our larger team prayed to support them.
00:05:32
Speaker
The local team hung in there for about a year. But finally, in January of this past year, 2024, they made the decision to hit reset on the group by canceling it, ah which seemed like going backwards.
00:05:44
Speaker
And they communicated with these disruptive students that the group was canceled and they should find something they actually want to do. Well, check this out. Two weeks later, they had an event where 24 students came.
00:05:57
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They heard at that event about a sixth grade girl coming to know Jesus. The following week, at a meeting, two additional students received Christ. They went into a winter middle school camp weekend where two more students came to know Jesus.
00:06:14
Speaker
And we saw three months after the cancellation of this group, with their reset, 35 students came to a club meeting in a given week. Why am I sharing this story?
00:06:26
Speaker
It's because we were praying as a larger team that God would grow this ministry so many more students would come to know him. And we barely saw growth. It was really hard to connect the dots to see how canceling a group was an answer to that prayer.
00:06:41
Speaker
But that's what happened. We didn't know that, but the Holy Spirit did. More recently, some of those boys have circled back around getting in contact with our Campus Life team.
00:06:52
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Pray for them that maybe now is their time to respond to God.
Biblical Insights on Prayer and the Holy Spirit
00:06:56
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God helps us pray. The Holy Spirit knows what we need far more than we do.
00:07:03
Speaker
In the Bible, in Romans 8, 26 and 27, it says, Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we don't know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
00:07:17
Speaker
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. We're so weak, we can't pray without the Spirit's help.
00:07:30
Speaker
But that's okay, because God wants to help. We don't know exactly what to pray for, but the Holy Spirit does and can connect our feeble prayer to a real need.
00:07:43
Speaker
So the bottom line is, if you spend time in prayer at all, it will not fail, because God helps you pray. My challenge to you today is, if you're struggling with a desire to pray, ask God to give you the motivation to pray to Him.
00:08:01
Speaker
He will do that. To pray not only about what's going on in your life, but pray for His work in showing young people who He is. and Commit to pray, even for a few minutes today.
00:08:12
Speaker
You're asking God to give you the desire and commit to showing up to pray. Ask God to move in the lives of young people, trusting that the Holy Spirit will connect your prayer to a real need.
Connecting to Prayer Groups
00:08:26
Speaker
Well, if you're listening to this and you want to connect and learn more about joining a prayer group connected one of our ministries or even starting one where a group of your friends can see God move and be really encouraged by that, shoot an email to me at pray, P-R-A-Y, at C-O-Y-F-C dot org.