Praying within God’s will.
Tool of the faith is that in praying we hear God’s will, and as such, we long to live in his will and in doing so we check the motives for our prayers.
When Jesus taught his disciples to pray he taught them this; Matthew 6:5-15.
5 “And 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. 6 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.
7 “And 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. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.[a]
10 Your kingdom come,
your will be done,[b]
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread,[c]
12 and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.[d]
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
That is an interesting prayer.
There’s been a lot of prayers centered however around this line of another of Jesus teachings on prayer and it is this line: From John’s gospel 14:14, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”
And this one: “’In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
Oh yes, prosperity teachers love those passages of Jesus teaching. Context is a wonderful thing, Jesus also taught this about the cost of discipleship and about following him. Matthew 8:22; "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."
This just before John 14:14, Jesus said “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”
So looking at prayer in context it is what we should be doing. If we are Bible believing people as I believe we are we know that God will answer prayer. God wants to show us his love for us through answering our prayers. Jesus is directing us as listeners to his words on prayer to focus our prayers and our lives on doing his will. Doing his will that God’s kingdom come and God’s will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Then God will be glorified and praised by new believers.
Just a bit of thinking about this “as it is in heaven” line. Being in heaven will for those of us on this side of things require something and I’ve been thinking a little about this during the week with the death of my Mother last week and the celebration of her life over the weekend. Getting to heaven and I firmly believe that God has a place for all of us there if we are saved by his atoning grace, but getting there requires leaving behind all that we have physically this side of heaven. We all go there materially broke, having cleared out her home I can tell you that all Mum possessed belong to others now. That and I am pretty sure there are no levels of material wealth in heaven. But God gives us all we need when we get there, including a new body, if you want to know more have a look at 2nd Corinthians 5:1-5.
So with that in mind what is it the God wants us to pray for? First and foremost he wants us to pray, here’s a question, how is your prayer life? Are you a worrier, the scriptures tell us “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Phillippians 4:6-7. Again this is not about getting all you have prayed for but the peace that transcends all understanding that you receive by presenting your worries to God. I will at some stage expand on that thinking in another sermon. By the way because I’m not a doctor, if you are being treated for any form of anxiety, stick with the treatment. However, pray, God’s inner peace is amazing. This is all deep spiritual stuff. I am sure that God would much more likely want to respond to your prayer about how to get food to an orphan in India, than find you a carpark outside the whatever shop in the city you are going to. I find this as challenging for me writing it as it, as you may do hearing it.
You may say I’ve prayed long and hard about this or that, I know myself that I still don’t have that fancy car up my drive way and a million dollars in the bank, my left shoulder is still limited in its range of movement and full of arthritis.
There are a few reasons that our prayers might not be getting answers, however. The tool of the faith is that in praying we hear God’s will, and as such, we long to live in his will and in doing so we check our motives for our prayers.
John in his first letter to the Church said this about prayer, 1 John 3:22
“And whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.” The implication here is that to have our prayers answered we are to live in a way that is in keeping with his will, not sinning but acting in ways that are pleasing to God. John expands upon this further by pointing out in 1 John 5:14-15 “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” According to his will is the part of that passage I have underlined. The early church were centred on bringing others into an understanding of who Jesus is and as such their prayer focus would have been largely focused on God’s kingdom growing here on earth. His will be done his kingdom come, right now, that we encounter life change, that we show love for God and love for those who need it in our lives now, so people encounter a taste of heaven now. As the man born blind points out to the Pharisees just before he was thrown out of the synagogue; “We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will.” –John 9:31. All I can say to that is we should all be thankful that God did hear our prayers when we called out to him seeking forgiveness or none of us would be here in this place now. God is good. We have his saving grace to celebrate.
God is interested in and knows the motives for requests. That is why sometimes the things we are praying for are not granted. James, Jesus’ brother points out, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” –James 4:3. I might be wrong but I’m fairly sure that the things that were being prayed for in the early church were not fancy new chariots and mysterious mortgage payments or gold dust.
However, the twist on that is when we are in God’s will, our prayers will be answered, as a for instance, those kids in India we are wanting to feed, will get feed. Just to go off on a bit of a tangent, in India there is no shortage of children to pray for on the streets of Mumbai there are around one hundred thousand orphans, that is just one Indian city. That spiritual insight that we are seeking after will be found, the daily bread we need will be given to us. God wants us to go deep in prayer, for healing, for encounter, for who to witness to, for who to feed, and yes, our own provision, for forgiveness, for God’s kingdom to come into the lives of those in need of Jesus.
In praying are we, hearing God’s will, knowing that we are praying with the correct motivation.
In Acts chapter 4 there is a prayer that I want to touch on; this is after Peter and John had been tried before the Sanhedrin and released. After they returned to their own people the people prayed. Their prayers were heard by God, they acknowledged God’s power and how the rulers of the earth plot against the Lord. The final sentence of the prayer prayed that day was one in which the people asked God this, “Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” Acts 4:30.
After this the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. Acts 4:31.
I want to leave you with a question today. When you pray do you want to see the place you are praying in shaken and the things that you are praying for knowing that it is God’s will that they happen, happen?
Let’s pray: Father we come to you humble and hungry for more of you, may we be the people you desire so that your will is done wherever we are present, that your kingdom, that your light may be seen in that place, that your name maybe praised “Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” Amen.
