sermon notes from 1/5/25
LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY
We have all had those times when prayer was so needed. But what about a life of prayer—a life that finds prayer is not only necessary but a daily part of life?
We may ask such questions as:
How do I exhibit a life of prayer in my daily life?
How can I better develop a willingness to be more disciplined as a person of prayer?
What blocks prayerfulness from working in my life and how can I make it function better in my life?
Prayer is much about changing us, our character, our will, and our values, even while we are seeking a response from God.
Our Scripture in Matthew is Jesus’ teaching on the Sermon on the Mount in regard to various important things in the life of one who would follow Him. But I want to take us to Luke 11 where it says this: “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray…”
The disciples, as they walked with Jesus, were on the front lines of how Jesus prayed and ministered to those who came to him. Their desire was to learn from Jesus how to effectively pray.
Having the discipline of prayer in our lives is the ultimate pursuit and practice of personal communication that we have available between ourselves and God. Prayer is not just a selfish wish list that we want to bring to God so that we can have our way. Prayer has its true purpose in shaping us into what the Lord has revealed in the Word of God and to grow in our faith, character, perseverance, and maturity. Prayer makes us willing and able to express praise, worship, seek forgiveness from God, become more sensitive to His presence in our lives and to pray for others, etc.
When we do not pray, we are actually ignoring God. There is a saying “no prayer for one week makes one weak.” Without a life of prayer, we are determining that we can do things on our own without God’s help and strength. We are saying to God, “I don’t need You.” In our Christian walks, Christ is center and if we are not spending time in prayer then we are ignoring the very sacrifice that Christ made for us to draw us near to Him in all aspects of our lives.
The Goal: to be people of prayer. The Apostle Paul talks in I Thessalonians 5:17 of “praying without ceasing.” What exactly does that mean? Do I have to become like a monk and hide myself away somewhere and my entire life is devoted to prayer? No. That is not what Paul is talking about. He is talking about developing in our lives such a dependence on the Lord that we talk to Him about everything.
In Philippians 4:6 it says to be “anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”
It makes sense that if we are disciples of Jesus, then, we should pray like him. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to pray as Jesus prayed?
It is interesting to note that Jesus taught his disciples to count the cost before they started on a venture and so as we go forward, we too will learn to count the cost in one way or another in learning to pray like Jesus.
One writer who I have been reading says this, “Learning to pray like Jesus will likely challenge the way you currently pray. If you take the prayers of Jesus seriously, you will probably have to reevaluate your concept of discipleship. If you decide to pray like Jesus prayed, you may do so with a bit of fear in your throat. Praying with Jesus is profound—profoundly different than most prayers you have heard or even said.” (Toby Lofton, 21 Days that can Change the Way You Pray)
As I reexamine my own prayer life at this time, I freshly realize that within myself I am not sufficient to meet the needs I am called to minister to and I must rely on the Spirit to not only strengthen me for the task but to use me to bring the love, peace, and compassion of Christ into the situation as much as possible. I need to rely heavily on the Lord to direct me as a Pastor and all the responsibilities that come with it. But often there are obstacles that we can face in developing a prayer life.
1. Thinking prayer does not make a difference.
a. This is an issue of belief. This is probably one of the biggest things we deal with. This manifests itself especially in the area of illness. When we have a loved one who is very ill and perhaps dying, we cry out to God for healing and yet our loved one dies. Did God not hear? Doesn’t God care? The difficulty that we face in these kinds of situations is that we evaluate God’s goodness and faithfulness in terms of how He answers our prayers. For many, when God does not answer as they desire, it becomes a place of faith crisis for them. For many, these times of crisis God seems absent or distant, but it is during these times that God is calling on us to walk by faith and not by sight.
2. Thinking I am self-sufficient.
a. We need to overcome the inertia of pride and the accompanying attitude of self-sufficiency. In John 15 Jesus tells us very specifically that He is the vine and we are the branches and that without Him we can do nothing. We are dependent on Him for our daily bread, for our very breath.
3. Needing to overcome our guilt and shame—or feeling we don’t deserve it. This is the lack of understanding our birth right in Christ.
a. God loves us with a perfect and unchanging love. He longs for us to come to Him, to ask of Him, to test and affirm His great and precious promises. The Lord knows us intimately—our thoughts, motives, guilt, shame, weaknesses, etc.—and yet He loves us and gave Himself for us that we might be called the children of God! God invites us into a place of grace and mercy.
b. Hebrews 4:14-15: 14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,[b] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
4. Now is the time to learn.
a. There really is no single pathway for us to learn how to pray—but we must learn! The discipline of prayer is committing to a two-way communication between God and us. The discipline of prayer is an attitude we put into action!
Think about the general way we pray personally:
· Praising God just for being who He is
· Sometimes asking for forgiveness
· Thanking the Lord for His mercy and grace and for the goodness we receive from Him
· Then there are the prayers maybe for guidance, for others etc.
Think about the general way we pray here at the church:
· Again, praising and thanking the Lord for a variety of things
· We have confession etc.
· Then we pray for everybody and the various requests that come. We pray for people who are sick that we know and for those we don’t know. We pray for our nation etc…
There is nothing wrong with these kinds of prayers but when we start looking at the prayers of Jesus in the weeks to come, we will begin to understand that we may be negating something in our prayers—that is in joining Jesus in asking for things from our Heavenly Father that can totally change us, change others, change people we haven’t even considered.
The goal is being drawn into a different place in our relationship with the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Jesus Instructs on Prayer: Matthew 6:5-13 (New Living Translation)
5 “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. 6 But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. 7 “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. 8 Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!
Prayer is…
Not about posture—God’s people prayed standing, kneeling, lying, with folded hands, uplifted hands, bowed heads, lifted heads, eyes closed, eyes open, etc. Prayer is about an open heart to God.
Not about a Place—God’s people prayed on a mountain, in a field, in a boat, in a house, in the Temple, in battle, doing their jobs, walking in and out of their homes, etc. Prayer can happen anywhere.
In Jesus instructions he is directing the disciples to go to their inner room. At this time most people did not have separate private quarters in their homes and the meaning of this is most likely metaphorical to emphasize privacy. This really comes down to the privacy of one’s heart. The focus is on the intimacy of communion with God in one’s heart, which is at the center of all prayer whether it happens publicly or privately.
Not about a Time—God’s people prayed in the morning, noon, evening, and at night when they go to bed—before meals, before harvest, during work, and in worship. Prayer is for any time of the day.
Jesus warns his disciples against repetitious prayer—this has to do with repeating the same words over and over again without thinking.
We understand that God is always ready to listen but he cannot be manipulated through ritual prayer. “Babbling” to get God’s attention and to try to manipulate Him to get what we want would be foolish because we are reminded that our Heavenly Father knows what we have need of before we even ask Him.
Jesus illustrates in his own life and teaching something that is crucial for us to grasp today:
1. Even though God already knows, we should not hesitate to ask. As disciples we don’t pray to give the Lord information but to express our desires, needs, and dependence on the Lord. This is the central theme of the Lord’s prayer that we will freshly discover in the weeks to come. It is also part of Jesus’ teaching in Luke 11.
2. Long continued prayer is not improper because the life of Jesus illustrates that often he prayed through the night. He also taught in parables perseverance in prayer such as the widow in Luke 18 and the repeated requests of Jesus in the garden before His arrest.
3. In Luke Jesus teaches about being very bold and specific in our prayers. This is something we are continually emphasizing here at Trinity—to pray boldly and specifically about any given situation.
Prayer links us with God in the right way and puts us in dialogue with him.
I read an illustration about not praying—it is like walking up to the marriage altar, saying one’s vows to the spouse, and then going mute as the relationship moves forward day by day. There can be no development of a deeper connection without time for what we would call “table talk.” Just basic conversation and without it the relationship would fail to go forward but would go backwards.
Prayer is a timeless element of our spirituality. A glance into the Psalms shows us just how intercession can transpire—some of it filled with great honesty and pain, praise and petition.
We all need to walk and talk with the Lord. We tend to look to the Lord in our moments of need and dependence, but if we are wise, we will recognize that we are always in need of the Lord. He is fully aware of and sensitive to our requests. He wants us to pray constantly and also to intercede for one another.
The intimacy of prayer is not a matter of feelings, but is grounded in the presence of a solid and established relationship. It is not a matter of sensing closeness, but of understanding and appreciating our need for dependence and trust in the Lord. It is learning more and more about Jesus and working diligently in our own spiritual walks to draw closer to Him. James tells us that if we draw near to Jesus, He will draw near to us. What a precious and wonderful promise we have—lets continue together to learn more and more about leaning in to the Lord and His ways.
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