-so here we are in the second part of our series about being alone with God. Ideally, everyone should be spending some time with God all by themselves, as much as possible when you really think about it.
-so for these two weeks we’re talking about how you can maximize your time with God, the things you can do when you’re alone, just you and Him.
-last week we talked about Reading Your Bible. When you’re alone with God, how His Word is a great way to hear from Him. We talked about the different types of Scripture, how to read the Bible, but most importantly, that you need to be living it out. Remember our two big questions, “what is this saying” and “how do I live it out”.
-this week we continue the series talking about prayer.
-now I think everyone knows prayer is good. And I think most people have a basic idea of what prayer is: talking to God. But what does that look like? How can we do it the best way possible?
-so let’s take a look at it. Here are some things to think about.
1. TIME
-here’s an age old question. How much time is right for prayer? If I pray only fifteen minutes am I less holy than the person who prays an hour? What if they do nothing but ask stuff of God for an hour, is it time or content?
-when it comes to praying, I think it’s exactly like talking with your friends. You need both short times and longer times/ You need quick and you need deep.
-I’ll explain. You all text. You manage to tell something to your friends in 160 letters or less. I think there are times when you should have “texting” prayers to God. When someone asks you to pray for something, why not say a short prayer in your head right then and there? It’s a great idea!
-but there are also times you need to have real conversations. No relationship is built on little texts alone. At some point you have to sit down and have real conversations, real discussions with real issues being dealt with or even just sitting around chatting.
-it’s great to have short prayers when things are on your mind, but you also need to have real conversations with God just like you do in any other relationship.
-I’ve heard it said this way. Food. Food is good. And it’s not a bad thing to eat little snacks throughout the day. But at some point, your body is going to need a meal, not a granola bar. You will need to eat all the food groups, sit down and digest it, your body needs meals.
-your soul needs meals. Your soul needs time alone with God where it’s just you and Him having a real conversation, not little text prayers.
-Jesus is the ultimate example of this. He would give little prayers all the time, we read about them all through the gospels, “Father, please heal them”, etc. But there’s also verses like this:
**Luke 5:16 -> 16But Jesus often slipped away to be alone so He could pray. (NCV)
-Jesus did this. He often made sure He had a chance to be alone and talk to God, just He and His Father.
-now think for a minute, if Jesus, God in human flesh needed to have time alone with God, don’t you think we need it too?
-yes, we need short little prayers, but we also need long periods of time, time just you and God to talk.
-but what do you talk about? “So God, did you see the hockey game? My Canadiens suck.” Well we have an example for that too.
2. WHAT TO SAY
-now, there is no magic formula for what to say, except for the one Jesus gave us.
**Matt. 6:7-13 -> 7“Don’t recite the same prayer over and over as the heathen do, who think prayers are answered only by repeating them again and again. Remember, your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask Him! 9“Pray along these lines: ‘Our Father in heaven, we honor Your holy name. 10We ask that Your kingdom will come now. May Your will be done here on earth, just as it is in heaven. 11Give us our food again today, as usual, 12and forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. 13Don’t bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One. Amen.’ “ (LB)
-I love how that translation puts it, “don't recite the same prayer over and over again”, then Jesus gives us this example of prayer, which we recite over and over again. Jesus wasn’t saying these words are magical, but He was giving us an example of prayer to follow.
PRAISE AND WORSHIP
-notice how the prayer start. Father God, we honor your Holy name. You are an amazing God. Jesus starts the prayer by recognizing who God is.
-this is kind of a lost art. If you were to address a dignitary or someone important, a lot of times you would start with a recognition of who they are. “Oh mighty queen of England who has kept the peace these many years, may your kingdom grow and be abundant.” Jesus is doing the same thing here with God.
-He is simply praising God for what He has done. After all, you sang that you do it. Praise Him in the morning, in the evening, when young, when old, when happy, when mourning, every season of the soul.
-the idea is it puts our focus on God and who He is. A lot of people, and I think all of us at times, pray for me. We have our requests and our agenda we want God to do for us. Well, it’s not about us. If you were talking to the president, you’d probably want to ask why he’d talk to you.
-by starting out praising God for who He is it helps us get our focus where it should be, on God.
YOUR WILL
-the next section, again, focuses on God. God, what do you want to do in my life? What do you want done here? What do you want me to do? What’s your will?
-this is so freeing when you think about it. It’s no longer us trying to figure out the solution to a problem and telling God to do it, although we have no idea how He could. Instead, it’s “what do you want”. It keeps our focus on the fact that God is all powerful and in control, yet at the same time loves us so much He has a plan for whatever it is we’re going through, we are so important to Him that He knows what to do and it’s better than what we could come up with.
-it boils down to trust. We just finished telling God how amazing He is and all He’s done, but now I’m not sure you know what’s best so here’s my idea? Doesn’t make much sense, does it? So instead, ask Him what He thinks we should do.
REQUESTS AND THANKS
-the idea of give us our daily bread, God, please provide for me. God take care of my needs. And I would say this. Ask. Be specific. There is nothing I hate more than when someone asks me if I can do something generic. “Make this room better.” What the frick does that mean? “Paint that wall” well now I know what you’re asking.
-we should be specific with God and ask Him not only what He thinks we need, His will, but pray for things that we want Him to help out with.
-and after that, thank Him. Not just for what you prayed He will do but for what He’s done. Have you ever helped someone who never says thank-you? They just keep coming with a list of more things you can do for them. Annoying, isn’t it? Well if you don’t like being treated that way, do you think it’s right to treat the God of the universe that way? Be thankful. Let Him know you appreciate what He’s doing. That’s part of being in a loving relationship with someone, you say thank-you.
FORGIVENESS AND HELP
-Jesus’ prayer ends with us asking to be forgiven, saying we’ll forgive others and asking to be kept from sinning anymore.
-we ask to be forgiven. We know we’re not perfect and only God has the power to forgive our sins. We’ve talked about this a lot the last few weeks with Easter and The Missing Piece sermons. We have to ask God to forgive us.
-but we also need to tell God that we forgive others who have wronged us. It’s not fair to ask God to forgive our sins, which are probably pretty big when you take into account what God really deserves from us, but then we don’t forgive those around us for piddly little things. True, they may seem major to us, but look at it from God’s point of view and how we treat Him. Plus I want to be forgiven, and Jesus said we need to forgive others to be forgiven (read Luke 6:37 or Matt. 18:21-34)
-but then after we ask to forgiven and forgive others, Jesus prays we will not be tempted as well. What a concept, not just asking for forgiveness, but asking God to help us not make the same mistakes again. Shocking.
-so there’s a formula for prayer. If you want another way to remember it, I’ve heard it called ACTS, the same thing but just a different order. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication (a fancy word for requests).
-now with this, this is a great prayer. But too many people miss a big part of it.
3. LISTENING
-what about actually listening to God? In a real conversation where you sit down and not text, you don’t just talk for forty-five minutes (or you shouldn’t, maybe that’s why you don’t have friends). You do this thing called listening. You listen to what they have to say.
-so few people actually listen to God. They pray for God to do His will but they don’t shut up long enough to hear from God what His will really is.
-and that sounds like something weird and it may be hard, listening to something in your heart, God talking to your soul. Sitting there quietly listening for God.
-we don’t like quiet, we don’t like waiting, and we definitely don’t like listening to others because we like to be talking. That’s why at NewSong we put that emphasis at the end of our time together on praying silently, maybe even hearing from God. The other services started doing it because the pastors liked it at NewSong.
-so when it comes to talking to God, listen for Him.
**Ps. 46:10a -> 10God says, “Be still and know that I am God. (NCV)
-a great little verse, but think about it. How do you get to know God? It doesn’t say by doing or talking or anything else but one thing: being still. Listening. Spending time with God where you let God do the talking.
-and after listening, here’s one more idea of how to help you’re time talking with God.
4. JOURNALLING
-I don’t care how you do it, with a pen and a spiral bound notebook or on the computer or whatever, but there’s something about writing out a prayer to God.
-I’m not saying you have to do it all the time, this is just a suggestion to help. It helps you remember what you learned from the Bible (if you write that part down) and helps you remember a conversation with God.
-too often we make prayer about just talking. Hopefully, those of you who have done the prayer nights with us know prayer can be more than just sitting. Well, it can be like that by yourself too. There are online prayer walks you can do at your computer. You can have your own forgiveness candle where you write out what you would like God to forgive you for. You can write things down in a journal. These things don’t have to be “just at Fire & Water” things.
-but there’s something to writing. Think about letters. When you write a letter, you think more, you are more concise, you put effort into your words instead of just rambling on and on and on.
-what if you wrote letters to God? Emails but instead of hitting send, say “this is my prayer to You God” then the close it. Or save it so you have a journal. I don’t know, there are no rules here. It’s not like paper is somehow holier than RAM. Just think of different ways that you can talk to God.
-and there are tons of them in Scripture. Maybe that’s something you want to study for yourself, a little topical study on how did people pray in the Bible, what did they do?
[AFTER]
-we hope this has been helpful, the past two weeks. There’s also some new journal available [HOLD UP], they have a spot to record what you read, what it meant, how you can live it out, and your prayers. Something to help you spend better quality time with God.
