Last week we looked at how prayer is one of the primary ways in which we stay connected to God, or the way Jesus said it, to abide in him, or to be in a relationship with God. All of these terms describe the same thing. Prayer was how Jesus stayed connected to God his Father when he walked the earth, and it is how we need to stay connected with God too.
If prayer is our tether to God, how is your prayer life? Is it enriching? Is it dull? Is it regular? Is it non-existent? Do your prayers get answered or do you feel like God is ignoring you? Wherever we are at, I think Jesus can teach us something about prayer.
One time after watching Jesus pray, one of his disciples realized he had a lot to learn about prayer and so he swallowed his pride and wisely asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.” He admitted to his own need to grow in his understanding of prayer. In fact, it can be our first prayer, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus answered his disciple’s request, and he will answer ours. Jesus taught his disciples how to pray by teaching them the prayer which we call the Lord’s Prayer. Over the next six weeks (including today) we are asking Jesus to teach us to pray as we learn from his model for prayer. The Lord’s Prayer was Jesus’ primary teaching on prayer. In Matthew’s gospel account when Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer he said, “This is how you should pray.” more than just words we should repeat word for word. The Lord’s Prayer was also meant to be a model or pattern for our prayers, so we can pray like Jesus prayed.
I. Our Prayer is Based on our Relationship with our Heavenly Father
Today, we are going to look at the just first line of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father, who art in heaven.” For Jesus to encourage us to start our prayers to our Father in heaven does not seem out of the ordinary for us, but in Jesus’ day it was not a very common way to start your prayers because Jews did not commonly refer to God as their Father. Father was too personal a term for God. Yet, Jesus frequently talked with his Father using the word "Abba", which translated into English would be equivalent to papa or daddy.
Illustration:
In seminary I was involved in a training for a care ministry called Stephen’s Ministry, and during our training time together our regular practice was to begin in prayer and so one of the seminary students prayed, and she began her prayer, “Papa, we love you…” I don’t remember anything she said after that because I never heard anyone start their prayer that way. I couldn’t get past the fact that she began her prayer to God as Papa. It seemed a little to personal, a little to chummy to say this to God. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized this was probably how the Jews in Jesus’ day felt when Jesus said to pray, “Abba Father.”
It is a term of endearment for a close personal relationship. This should not surprise us with Jesus because God really was and is his Father. The Bible tells us Jesus is God’s one and only Son. Yet, Jesus tells us that we should pray “our Father” too because our prayers first and foremost are about our relationship with our loving heavenly Father. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior we become one of God’s children, and he wants to spend time with us. God is our Father, and we are his adopted children.
Galatians 4:4-5 (NLT) tells us "But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. “And because you Gentiles have become his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, and now you can call God your dear Father (Abba Father).”"
Through Jesus, God is our heavenly Father too, and our Father invites us to prayer first and foremost so we can spend time with Him. In the small study guide to our series, "Lord, Teach us to Pray," author Fred Hartley warns us:
“One of the great dangers to prayer is a purely utilitarian view of it; that is, thinking that the primary reason to pray is to get something from God. The primary reason to pray, rather, is to be with God.”
II. Prayer as Being With God Versus Getting Something from God
One of the problems we run into when talking about prayer is that we tend to see prayer as a time to bring our list of requests to God, such as prayers for healing or protection or providing for someone’s needs. God wants us to bring these to him. But prayer needs to be first focused on our relationship with God, being with God, before we bring our requests. Notice in the Lord’s Prayer that the first time a personal request is made of God isn’t until the middle of the prayer, “give us this day our daily bread.”
Have you ever been with a parent, grandparent, child, or spouse and just sat and watched a sunset together? No words, just sitting side by side enjoying the view and each others presence? This is what the relationship aspect of prayer can be like, just being with God, enjoying God’s presence. I remember as a child my grandparents never seemed to say much to each other, and yet they were always together, and you could always tell the love that was shared. The love they have for each other was tangible.
Christian author Philip Yancy helps give us a poetic image of this kind of prayer, he writes:
"My home sits in a canyon in the shadow of a large mountain along a stream named Bear Creek. During the spring snowmelt and after heavy rains the stream swells, tumbles frothily over rocks, and acts more like a river than a creek. People have drowned in it. Once I traced the origin of Bear Creek to its very source, atop the mountain. I stood on a snowfield marked by “sun cups,” the bowl-shaped indentations that form as snow melts. Underneath I could hear a soft gurgling sound, and at the edge of the snow, funnels of water leaked out. These collected into a pool, then a small alpine pond, then spilled over to begin the long journey down the mountain, joining other rivulets to take shape as the creek below my house. It occurs to me, thinking about prayer, that most of the time I get the direction wrong. I start downstream with my own concerns and bring them to God. I inform God, as if God did not already know. I plead with God, as if hoping to change God’s mind and overcome divine reluctance. Instead, I should start upstream where the flow begins. When I shift direction, I realize that God already cares about my concerns—my uncle’s cancer, world peace, a broken family, a rebellious teenager—more than I do. Grace, like water, descends to the lowest part. Streams of mercy flow. I begin with God, who bears primary responsibility for what happens on earth, and ask what part I can play in God’s work on earth."
I think a lot of times we get the direction wrong in prayer. We start at the bottom of the stream and send our prayers up rather than going and spending time at the top to be with the God who cares more about our concerns than we do. After being with God we may discover there are items he wants us to pray about, there are concerns on his heart.
III. Our Relationship with God is of utmost importance in answering prayer.
When we get the relationship aspect first our prayers flow from there. In our memory verse this morning, Jesus said,
"If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you (John 15:7)."
God invites us to ask whatever we want so that he can grant it. Think about how amazing a promise that is. I can ask God for whatever I want and God will grant it. How can Jesus make such a bold response about God granting our requests? Because the focus is first on our relationship with Jesus Christ. Notice Jesus said, if you remain in me, and my words remain in you, then you can ask and God will grant your request. As we are connected to God, abiding with Jesus, we become open and sensitive to what is on God’s heart. Our prayers become shaped by God’s desires rather than our own selfish perspective.
The Bible is clear that when we ask with a selfish desire, there is no guarantee that we will receive what we are asking for.
NIV James 4:2 You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
The reason we do not receive first, is because we do not ask God. Second, we do not receive because we ask with wrong motives, we ask with selfish motives rather than God centered desires.
The kind of prayers God promises to answer are those where we have spent time with God in prayer and are immersed in his Word, so that God can reveal his heart and the persons and requests he has. In other words, as we spend time with God we learn to pray for others what God wants us to pray rather than what we are motivated to pray. And those who have that relationship with God have powerful and effective prayers because we are praying what God already wants us to pray.
NRS James 5:16 "Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective."
Why is the prayer of a “righteous” person powerful and effective? Because a righteous person is one who is in right relationship with God. They have been covered by the blood of Jesus. Their sins are forgiven. They are able to stand before God because they are holy and pure, not because of what they have done but because they have believed and received the gift of what Jesus has done for them. They continue to remain in a right relationship with God.
IV. God’s Word Abiding in Us
The first prerequisite to prayer is our relationship with God “if we abide in him [Jesus],” being with Jesus. The second prerequisite before making our requests is that “his words abide in us.” Fortunately we have his words recorded in the Bible. As we read the words of Jesus, he meets us there, and speaks to us if we are willing and open to listen. This is one of the primary ways we head God’s voice, and learn to understand God’s heart. God answers prayer, but he promises to answer the prayers of those who are immersed in his Word, and who have his
There are a few ways to practice God’s Word abide in our hearts
1. Reading and studying the Bible, allowing God to speak to us through His word. Sometimes God may speak to us something that is not even written on the page.
2. Scripture memorization, taking a verse like this mornings and commit it to memory.
3. Another way we allow God’s word to effect our prayer life is to pray Scripture. We pray God’s Word back to him because God honors his own Word when we ask in Jesus’ name.
For example you could use the Scripture passages we have been using John 15 as a model for prayer.
"Jesus, you are the vine, and Father you are the gardener. Cut off every branch that does not bear fruit, prune us Father so we can bear even more fruit, cut off anything in our life that does not bear your fruit. Thank you for making us clean through the words you have spoken to our heart. Now, help us to continue to abide in you Jesus, so that you will abide in us and we will bear your fruit. We realize that we can do nothing without you in our life. Without you we are like worthless branches that wither and die, only to be thrown in the fire and burned. Instead, help us to remain in you and your words in our heart so our prayers will be answered. Help us to bear much fruit so that we can show to the world we are your disciples.
Notice I took and made the scripture personal, I used the pronoun “we,” but in your own prayers you could use “I” or “me.”
Conclusion:
My challenge to you this week is to spend at least five minutes every day praying by just coming into God’s presence without any agenda or objective other than to be with God. You may use words or you may not. Do not give God any prayer concerns, just spend time with your heavenly Papa. If you become distracted or things keep popping into your mind, give these to God, tell God, “I am thinking about dinner God, if this is not from you could you remove it from my mind.” If it helps have an empty chair next to you to imagine Jesus just sitting there next to you. The point is just to enjoy being with God just like sitting there with someone you love watching a sunset, just enjoying the moment of being together.
After you have spent time with God, open the Bible and read the words of Jesus, use John’s Gospel (or any of the gospels) and ask what God is saying to you. You might then ask, “what or who do I sense God is wanting me to pray for?” And then pray whatever God is leading you to pray.
Let me close with words of Richard Foster from his book Prayer: Finding the Hearts True Home:
"The key to this home, this heart of God, is prayer. Perhaps you have never prayed before except in anguish or terror. It may be that the only time the Divine Name has been on your lips has been in angry expletives. Never mind. I am here to tell you that the Father’s heart is open wide - you are welcome to come in.
Perhaps you do not believe in prayer. You may have tried to pray and were profoundly disappointed...and disillusioned. You seem to have little faith, or none. It does not matter. The Father’s heart is open wide - you are welcome to come in.
Perhaps you are bruised and broken by the pressures of life. Others have wronged you, and you feel scarred for life. You have old, painful memories that have never been healed. You avoid prayer because you feel too distant, too unworthy, too defiled. Do not despair. The Father’s heart is open wide - you are welcome to come in.
Perhaps you have prayed for many years, but the words have grown brittle and cold. Little ever happens anymore. God seems remote and inaccessible. Listen to me. The Father’s heart is open wide - you are welcome to come in.
Perhaps prayer is the delight of your life. You have lived in the divine milieu for a long time and can attest to its goodness. But you long for more: more power, more love, more of God in your life. Believe me. The Father’s heart is open wide - you too are welcome to come higher up and deeper in.
Richard Foster. Prayer: Finding the Hearts True Home, (HarperSanFransico, 1992), p. 2.
