WHAT PRAYER IS
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I do not know if you could identify with any of those people in that video clip. I am sure you could. Isn’t it amazing how many of them said they did not pray but also how many said they did pray. Yet let me ask you a question ‘What is prayer?’ I have no doubt that all of us here this morning expect to pray at some point during this service of worship. No doubt many of you said prayers with your children at bedtime last night. Some of you may have prayed this morning before you came to church. Some of you prayed when you sat down in your seat before the service began. What were you doing? Do you believe it makes a difference? What do you pray about? Do you find it easy or difficult to pray? Well over the next 6 weeks we are going to look at prayer and issues surrounding prayer. But right at the beginning of this sermon I want to say this to you all – the objective of these sermons is not primarily to teach you about prayer but to get you praying. The objective is not to persuade you that you ought to pray, that it is a good thing to pray but actually to get you to pray. If you already pray then I hope and pray this series will encourage you in your prayer life. If you are struggling with praying then this series is to help you keep going and to get stronger in your prayer life. If you don’t pray at all, or infrequently then this series is to persuade you to make prayer part of your daily life.
I want to concentrate on a couple of bible verses this morning in answering; ‘What prayer is.’ Turn with me first of all to Luke 11 verse 1. This is Luke’s account of the passage we read from Matthew 6 this morning. I want to draw your attention to the question the disciples asked of Christ – read verse 1. Now think a moment about Jesus. Here are 12 men who have spent three years with Jesus. They have listened to Him preach with great power and authority. They have witnessed Him work wonderful miracles. They have listened to Him debate with the religious elite of His day. Yet they come and ask Him to teach them how to pray. I was really struck by that. They could have asked Him to teach them all sorts of things and yet it is how to pray that they desire teaching on – Why? Why prayer? I believe the answer to that question is found in what they had witnessed of the life of Christ – His life was bathed in prayer. We read that He rose early in the morning and sought a quiet place to pray. We read constantly of Him withdrawing from the crowds to pray. Before major events in the gospels we find Jesus praying. At the very end of His life what does He do? He goes to the Garden of Gethsemane and prays. From the gospel accounts Judas knew where Jesus would be – illustrating that this part of the garden was a familiar place of prayer for Christ. So the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray. So let us now see what He taught them.
Turn with me now to Matthew 6.5-13. When answering the request of the disciples; ‘teach us how to pray’ Jesus begins by assuming that they do pray. Look at verse 6 ‘when you pray.’ There is an assumption there that the disciples do pray. Jesus assumes that those who would be His followers pray and that it is a daily occurrence. He then sets down some simple guidelines for them, and we should follow them also. He tells them to go somewhere quiet and private – a place away from public gaze and distraction. It is not that Jesus is saying we should not pray in public, nor with others – but that daily prayer is to be a private devotion. So we are to go somewhere we won’t be seen by anyone but our heavenly Father and Jesus makes a promise to His disciples, and us – the Father will hear and answer. So those are some of the practical things that we need to consider when we come to pray. But what is prayer? What are we doing when we pray? Well let me share with you two things the Bible teaches about prayer.
RELATIONSHIP.
I want you to look at Matthew 6.9. When Jesus begins His prayer He tells the disciples to call God ‘Father.’ He uses the everyday term ‘Abba, Father.’ A biblical scholar called Joachim Jeremias has studied all the teaching on prayer in Judaism at the time of Christ and he says that nowhere did he read of God being addressed as ‘father’ in any Hebrew prayers or teaching on prayer. So for Christ to address God in such a way was in fact quite revolutionary, almost scandalous in fact. Yet the reason He did so was that right at the very heart, the very core of His teaching on prayer is that it is primarily about a relationship with God as Father. Let me repeat that. At the very heart, the very core, prayer is about a relationship with God as Father. That is why Jesus begins His teaching on prayer with an intimate term of endearment. He addresses God as ‘Father’ and teaches the disciples to do the same. The address is to a personal God and not to something or someone unknown. Such a personal address implies a personal relationship.
If you go back to the Old Testament you will see time and again that those who pray, pray not to some unknown god but, to God who is known to them and with whom they have a relationship. For example how often do we read of God revealing Himself as ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel.’ God constantly and consistently reveals Himself as personal.
Listen to these words from James 4.7-8 READ. Prayer is also the means of coming near to God. James exhorts us to come to near to God because in drawing near to God we will be blessed by God drawing near to us. The means of this drawing near is prayer. What happens in this drawing near – READ 1 John 1.9 God assures us of the forgiveness of our sin. God assures us of our relationship with Him that was once non-existent because of our sin but in prayer God assures us that our sin is forgiven and the relationship with God is restored. Having that assurance in our souls we know the peace of God in our lives (Philippians 4.6-7).
Prayer is therefore a relationship with God who is personal and who speaks. Which leads us to the second point.
COMMUNICATION.
Listen to these words from Revelation 3.20 READ. I know you have often heard them quoted in the context of coming to a personal relationship with God through Christ Jesus but I believe they also speak to us of communication in prayer. Prayer is the speaking part of our relationship with God. Our relationship with God depends upon birth – being born again. However our fellowship (the quality) of our relationship with God depends on our behaviour. Let me illustrate that for you. Your children are your children by birth. You cannot change that fact, nor can they. However the quality of your relationship with your children is not determined by the fact that you gave birth to them. The quality of the relationship depends upon their behaviour and your behaviour. They remain your children but the relationship is maintained, strained or broken by behaviour. We know from the Word of God that God as our Father is completely consistent in His behaviour towards us (He loves us unconditionally) but our fellowship with Him is maintained, strained or broken by our behaviour (our sin primarily). Prayer is a means of maintaining our fellowship with God. It is the speaking part of our relationship with God. But please hear this – it is a two way communication – it is a dialogue and not a monologue. We are often guilty of seeing prayer as us speaking to God, as something we do. But look again at Revelation 3.20. Do you notice who takes the initiative? Jesus takes the initiative. He is standing at the door. He knocks. He speaks and then we respond. Please note that – our words in prayer are a response to God’s Word to us in Christ. Our words are a response and not primarily an address. We open our hearts and He comes in and eats with us. He moves us to pray. Our prayers are always a response to God moving in our hearts. We may think we take the initiative but that is not true – God is in control and leading our hearts to prayer. Prayer is a response. Yes we bring petitions and requests to God in prayer but this only happens because God has moved our hearts to prayer. I think we sometimes need to remind ourselves that prayer is our response to God having spoken first.
God wants us to pray but He does not need us to pray. God knows already what we need. Listen to what God said through Isaiah (Isaiah 65.24 READ). God said that even before we call He answers. He knows what we need and He knocks on the door of our hearts to move us to prayer so that we might open the door of our lives and accept the gracious blessings He has in store for us- Matthew 7.9-11. The key phrase in those verses is ‘how much more.’ However much we may think we know what is best for us in our lives God has even greater gifts of grace to give us. God never has to answer our prayers but He does answer because as He said in Jeremiah 32.40-41 ‘I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.’ He answers because He delights to do good for you His children. Therefore He motivates us to ask.
Listen to these words of Paul in Romans 8.26-27. These verses are commonly interpreted as meaning we don’t know the right words to speak and so the Holy Spirit takes our hearts cry and intercedes before the Father for us. Yet that does not do true justice to the text. What Paul is saying is that the Holy Spirit comes to our aid to help us pray aright. It is a case of that we do not know what we ought to pray (ignorance) and also we do not pray well. So the Holy Spirit comes and puts into words what we ought to pray but also enables us to pray aright – since He already knows the will of the Father. So even in our weakness, in our inability to put into words the deep longings of our souls God in His desire to communicate with us has given us the Holy Spirit who intercedes for us. The Holy Spirit gives expression to the inexpressible longings of our souls. Again I want you to note that it is God taking the initiative in prayer. The Holy Spirit intercedes because we are unable to. One writer wrote of this action of the Holy Spirit; ‘this prayer is the very breath of the soul.’ I think that is a wonderful description of what the Spirit of God does in my soul in prayer – He breathes life into my prayers.
CONCLUSION.
I want to finish this sermon with a word of warning to us all. Often today prayer is treated as something to ‘start things off’ or to ‘bring things to a close.’ Often if there is a pastor present he will be asked to ‘say a wee prayer.’ Often people want me, as the pastor or you as the christian, to pray for them because they treat prayer as a superstitious good luck charm. All of these things take prayer lightly and are in fact belittling of prayer. The words we use when we pray are sacred and not to be taken lightly. Let me read one pastor’s fantasised response to being asked to ‘get things started with a little prayer, will ya?’ ‘I will not! There are no little prayers! Prayer enters the lion’s den, brings us before the holy where it is uncertain whether we will come back alive or sane, for ‘it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’’ (William McNamara, The Human Adventure, p.89). I think we all would do well to take those thoughts on board when we come to pray.
AMEN.
