One thing from last week. Somehow Almighty God causes us to be co-workers with Him. Everything is prompted by Him – we are prompted to pray in a certain way for a certain person, and Father’s name is glorified.
Matthew 6:5
A clear castigation of those who pray to be seen to be praying. Forget it.
Matthew 6:6-9
We’re not to go on and on for half an hour in the belief that that will cause God to answer. If I’m praying about something and really need an answer, there’s nothing wrong in praying more than once. But don’t simply watch the clock to chalk up brownie points.
God knows what we need, but through His grace and love and mercy He likes us to take part. He loves communication. It was His voice – the communicative ability of God with man – that walked in the garden.
Matthew 6:9-16
Luke 11:1-13
The key part is following on from the Lord’s prayer – “Ask and it shall be given to you. ”We do need to spend time in prayer. It’s not an option. It’s part of us being co-workers with God and it’s Him communicating with us. If your child never spoke to you, it would get to you. Here He is our Father. So, in Matthew and Luke, the whole accent is on the relationship. We saw the story of a man and his friend. I’ll help you – you’re my friend. And so with prayer, the communication is like father and son.
“Our Father”. Jesus always prayed to His father and referred to Him as such. Only once did He refer to Him as God :
Matthew 27:46
This is the only time Jesus is recorded as talking to God as God. Every other time, it was “My father”.
RT Kendal says, “That was the moment all our sins were transferred to Jesus and God turned His back on His one and only son. The sense of fellowship was momentarily forfeited. It was the worst part of His suffering. ”
Father is a term of intimacy . God has a special relationship with His children. He accepts us because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. An unbeliever can call God creator, judge, but he can’t call Him father. There is a special relationship, a father-son relationship, from which that intimacy flows.
Galatians 3:25-26
You’re a child of God by faith. So when you pray, as a child with a father, there is an intimacy, a link. When my children were younger, there was total trust – “What you say, dad, I’ll believe. ”No worries about provision – “I’m a member of a family and he’s my dad. ”
Romans 8:16-18
These verses underline the father/son relationship – children of God, birthed into Christ, relationship with the Father. So when the fatherhood was examined . . . I talked about George Muller last week, and thousands of children went through his orphanages, and it was a life of prayer. It was when he read Psalms 68:5.
Psalms 68:5
That he was inspired to take in orphans, and from then on it was a life of faith,
Muller: “By the help of God this shall be my argument before Him respecting the orphans in their hour of need. He is their father, and I have only to remind Him in order to have it supplied. By the grace of God this is no cause of anxiety to me. These children I have cast upon the Lord the whole work is His. I am able to roll the burden upon my heavenly father. ”
Our relationship is with God our heavenly father. We don’t cringe behind a door. That’s not a relationship of father son. Prayer is sharing with your father. You’re asking Him, talking to Him. Think of a child not talking to their father.
Ecclesiastes 5:3-4
You can be at peace in that father/son relationship. We’re His children, but there also needs to be a sense of reverence.
“Hallowed be thy name” – let His name be treated as holy, given the honour He deserves. When people use the word Jesus off-hand at work, with no relation to Him, when they use Christ as a swear word, it does affect you, I find.
Isaiah 42:8
John 5:43
There was something special about father’s name – hallowed be thy name.
This is God’s church. His name is to be revered here. He is in control of His church. If I were to put my name on this church, it would be contrary to what God is about. It’s His work.
“Thy kingdom come”
John 3:3
The Lord’s prayer is a template of the things which should be involved in prayer. We don’t have to use these precise words. The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray.
Everything is god-ward. “Our Father, . . . hallowed be thy name . . . thy kingdom come. ”It’s good to think about Him and what He wants when I come to prayer.
So much of praying is man-centred. We don’t think of who God is.
James 4:3
Let’s think about what God is about. “Thy kingdom come. ”It’s not to do with me.
1 John 5:14
It’s good for us to be aware of who God is and what He wants. That’s key. So much is it key that the next petition is . . .
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. ”We want not just the kingdom to come, but also the will of the King to come about. We’re getting more specific. Prayer doesn’t change God’s will. It changes ours. As we get to know God and learn what He wants and are prompted by the Spirit, He brings our hearts and minds into alignment with what He wants. We can’t force God into a mould and tell Him what to do. Jesus prayed that the cup might pass from Him – yet not as I will, but as thou wilt.
There are two ways God reveals what He wants. He uses the Bible, and there is also the secret will personal to you, which He has planned for you.
Psalms 47:4
Ephesians 2:10
There’s a will of God unique to your life. Your pathway, each one of you, is different from everyone else’s. I want the King’s will in my life. I want His will, not mine. I don’t want sin or rebellion to be in the way. I want Him to be Lord of my life.
John 15:5-8
The key is His words abiding in you. We want everything of God to happen. You’re in alignment. God’s Holy Spirit prompts you to pray in a certain way, and you’re in alignment with God’s will and It’s His delight for you to be a co-worker and see your prayer answered. And the end result is glory to Him, wonderment, thanks for what He has done.
“Give us this day our daily bread”. Our needs – but this comes only after the first god-ward issues.
“And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. ”This isn’t a plea for salvation. When I come to pray I need to have got things sorted out. Just as you clear the decks before taking communion, so here. We’re saved by faith alone, but we need to keep short accounts with God and with other people.
Matthew 6:14-16
You need to keep the right perspective.
“And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. ”Most commentaries say this should really read “deliver us from the evil one”. God doesn’t tempt anyone . . .
James 1:13
It’s simply a prayer that we won’t get caught in the devil’s snare. But we have this promise :
James 4:7
RT Kendal: “The main thing we learn from the Lord’s Prayer is that we are primarily to seek God’s face, not His hand. Jesus wants for us to have fellowship with the Father. ”
The first part of the Lord’s prayer is God-directed. The second part is directed towards us and our needs. And then we return to God again.
Three guiding principles . . .
Hebrews 4:16
1 John 4:16
He’s our heavenly father, the God of love.
Phillipians 4:6
With thanksgiving. Try and get into the habit – and you can learn this – get into the habit of being thankful to God, no matter what you are praying about.
Mark 1:35
He prayed a great while before day. If we were to leave it at that . . . Aside from audience: “Count me out. ”
Matthew 14:23
Mark says before day. Matthew says it’s evening.
Luke 6:12
Jesus prayed before day, in the evening and all night. There is no set time to pray. The key point is to do it. Whatever is convenient is what’s right. It’s not more spiritual to pray in the morning, in the evening, all night. Whatever fits in best is what we should do. But we need to pray.
So much for the when.
John 11:41
John 17:1
Just talking about practicalities, Jesus prayed with His eyes open here. There is no set pattern. With eyes closed, there is less distraction. But it’s not wrong to pray with your eyes open. What matters is that you pray.
In what posture should you pray
Psalms 95:6
1 Kings 8:54
Kneeling. Then kneeling with hands spread to heaven.
Luke 22:39-42
Jesus knelt.
Acts 7:59-60
All examples of people kneeling. The Pharisees tended to stand.
Hebrews 1:3
Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:
We pray in Jesus’ name, through Him to Father. He is now sat down at the right hand of God. There is no hard and fast rule as to the posture for prayer. It would look odd on the Central Line in the rush hour if you knelt – although I’ve been on a Muslim airline where there is a prayer mat and the passengers knelt down.
It doesn’t matter when you pray, whether your eyes are open, your posture. The key point is to pray. Common sense says that if you kneel it makes you humbled. But we know that you can pray driving in the car. I used to love praying on the underground – I used to love the idea I could pray to God through the ground. You knew you were talking to God.
Just make sure that the posture is suitable for you to be able to pray. Getting on your knees doesn’t change you. If you’re knackered, getting on your knees won’t change that.
1 Peter 3:7
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
Talking to husbands. Our relationship with our wives matters. It’s like keeping things right with those close to you. Don’t think you can pray in whatever posture without having things right with your wife. Your prayers will be hindered.
I think what God is doing in these studies is to cause each of us to increase in our relationship of faith in Jesus Christ, to grow and share that relationship with God. In time that will have a knock-on effect with us corporately. I don’t think we’ll end up having prayer meetings. But as we learn now to pray more individually, so if God wants us to pray specifically for something corporately, it will happen more easily.
Acts 12:1-5
James had just been killed. Peter had been caught. What would happen to him. there was instant and earnest prayer.
Acts 12:7-18
I don’t blame them for being astonished. What were they praying. Was it that he wouldn’t be killed. Probably. Could they have thought God could have got him out of the prison like that. Probably not. What an answer to prayer. Never rule out anything God can do in answer to your prayer. He will answer in the way He chooses.
I have no doubt there will come a time when we will do the same. Not for the same reason. But who knows What I do know is that that was a key part of the early church. I don’t think things were different then. But what an answer to prayer
I’ve spoken to a few people in the last few days who have quoted wonderful things to me – specific answers to prayer.
Five things that we as Christians have in Jesus Christ as far as prayer is concerned.
1. The Christian has the teaching of Christ.
2. The Christian the example of Christ.
3. The Christian has the blood of Christ – and there is a new and living way though what Jesus has done on the cross.
4. The Christian has the intercession of Christ. He ever liveth to make intercession for us.
5. The Christian has the name of Christ. The Christ one – the Christian. The name above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.
Isaiah there some magic in asking prayers in Jesus’ name No. But it’s as if all prayer is bound up in this relationship. We are co-workers together with Him. We haven’t uncovered some formula, to which we append the name of Jesus and things automatically work. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about a relationship between father and son. The glory is to His name and we go forward from glory to glory. Very practical. Very real.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
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