Prayer (Part 1)

Amen. Okay, well we're going to start as I've prayed and as you see on your notes we're going to start on the subject of prayer.

! And this too of course falls under the category of what we're calling spiritual formation. And we'll look at kind of really most of this study is going to be mostly surface things.

I hate to put it that way because that kind of trivializes the importance of prayer. But these are just some of the basics. Let's use that term. Some of the basics about prayer as we're taught from Scripture.

And if you thumb through the notes you already see it's packed full of Scripture. So everything that we're going to consider concerning prayer we're going to also consider Scripture.

And hopefully, obviously, we don't just do this as an exercise so that we can put more up in the brain, more up in our heads.

And hopefully, this will result in our prayer lives being much more meaningful. And also result in our becoming more disciplined in prayer.

Because it's so crucial. Alright, so the first bullet you have on your notes goes like this. Prayer, and this is kind of, by the way, kind of defining prayer.

And this is kind of what we're going to do initially. Prayer is my response to the character of God. This is a good place to begin on understanding the importance of prayer.

And really, when you get down to it, understanding this aspect of prayer gives us a motivation for prayer.

And at the same time, it enhances the depth and, I guess we could even use the word quality, of our prayer. Because prayer is always response to the character of God.

And, you know, it'll be a great day when we learn that not only is prayer communication with God, but that it is first and foremost a response to God.

Now, what would be the difference? And when you think about it in those terms, you know, communication to God. Prayer certainly is that. But what about contrasting that with a response to God?

That's a different thing. Or at least it reveals something much more important, something much more vital. You can communicate to God just like you might communicate to the person in the cubicle next to you at work or the person over the counter at Walmart or some friend you might get on the phone and talk to.

You can communicate and just talk and communicate. But if that's all we do in prayer to God, then we're missing out on a great bit of what it's all about.

The importance of it and the richness of it. Prayer, we ought to think of it as a response to God. It's to God. Romans 11.36, and I put this passage in here not because it's necessarily thought of as one of those prayer passages, but prayer is included in this because of the words all things.

So everything is included in this, and it's a famous passage. 11.36 says, For of him and through him and to him are how many things? All things to whom be glory forever.

Now that includes prayer. And that's why I would say that prayer is a response to God. Really, our prayer, the substance of it, and the fervence of it begins with God as we're responding to him.

I put this little quote in here from Adrian Rogers. In fact, I sprinkle a few Adrian Rogers quotes throughout the notes. And you'll have to thank Wes LaRue for this because a couple of weeks ago, he ordered and gave to me volume one and volume two of Adrianisms.

Really good, really good. And many of them, as I kind of thumbed through them, many of them I remember hearing him say. So I thought I'd just kind of spice it up a little bit with a few things that Adrian Rogers said.

And this is a good one. The prayer that gets to heaven is a prayer that starts in heaven. That is completely in line with not only many other passages we could consider, but in line with the import of Romans 11.36.

For of him and through him and to him. It's that divine cycle. Are all things to whom be glory forever.

All right, so the more we know God, who God is, his character, his nature, the more that develops in our hearts, our minds, the more natural it is for us to respond to him properly in our prayers.

That's why it's important to know God. Now, we can't know everything about God. We can know what Scripture reveals to us about God. His ways are not our ways.

He is as high as the heavens are from the earth. Are his ways above our ways. He's past knowing in the complete sense. I mean, what kind of God would we be worshiping and serving if he was a God that we knew every single thing about?

But we can know his nature and his character. And the more we know God, his nature, his character, his ways, his likes, his dislikes, and I guess we could go on with a list.

The more we know that, the better equipped and able are we to respond to him properly in our prayers. So that our prayers become more than just simply, you know, I've got my list of, you know, my grocery list here, and then I have my dirty laundry list.

That's about the extent of a lot of people's prayer life, is they have their grocery list, the things they want, and then they have their dirty laundry list, the things they've done wrong. And that's all we do.

If we will know God even better and consider his nature and all that he's done for us, then it enhances our prayer life.

And, by the way, and this is not a hard question to answer, but just how do we grow in that knowledge? Well, we have this book that tells us everything we need to know about who God is and so forth.

So we do it through the study of his word, but I would also add to that we do it through a sensitivity to his ways. Did I put that on the notes? Or did I skip that?

All right, you'll have to write this down. I'm sorry. You know, Jonathan, not this Jonathan, my son Jonathan, one of his favorite words these days is the word copious.

And so you'll have to take some copious notes out there. And if you don't know what the word copious means, ask Jonathan. He can tell you. So you'll have to add this yourself.

Let me say it again. The more we know who God is and all of his nature and his character, the more natural it is for us to respond to him properly in prayer.

And so then I would say, well, just how do we do that? How do we know more about it? Well, simple, through the study of his word. Not just simply the reading of it, but the study of it.

But then I add this, also through a sensitivity to his ways. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, God is always working. God is always working.

He's always moving in our lives. He's always ordering things, putting things in order around us, and moving here and moving there, and blessing here and blessing there, teaching us here and there, sometimes teaching us through hard knocks.

I may be the only one that happens to. I don't know. But God is always moving his ways, and he allows us, because we're his children, and his spirit abides in us, he allows us to have a vision, be able to see a kind of vision, a sight to see God working in his ways.

And what we need to do is develop a sensitivity to that. And, you know, we want to recognize that this is God working. And have you ever had something happen, or someone has given a testimony of something great that has happened in their life, and have you ever heard anybody say, or you said, or said something like this, well, that's just like God to do that.

Well, that's a sensitivity to his ways. And so the more we study his word, and the more sensitive we are to his ways, then the more we grow in the knowledge of his nature and his character.

And the more we grow in the knowledge of his nature, his character, the better equipped we are to respond to him properly in prayer. So it's very simple.

All right, now, with that in mind, under prayer is my response to the character of God, let's consider some of the various elements of prayer. Various elements of prayer.

And the first one I've listed here is Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. You might not list Thanksgiving first. Your elements of prayer. You know, I'm talking about what prayer is typically made up of.

A lot of them. Some of us would maybe add petition as the number one thing. We'll get to that later. Maybe, no, not petition, but I always add confession first.

Maybe that should be number one. Well, I'm not trying to put these in any particular order of importance. So, you know, you can order them any way you want to. But let's walk through these.

Thanksgiving is an element of prayer, right? It should be. Though it is a missing element sometimes in my prayer life. I don't know about you.

Thanksgiving is my response to the goodness of God. Thanksgiving is my response to the goodness of God. Remember, this is all under the heading, a response to the character of God.

So, we put some of the elements of prayer and connect them with some of the features of God's character, God's nature. So, Thanksgiving is my response to the goodness of God.

Psalm 116, verse 12 and 17. What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will offer to you the sacrifice of Thanksgiving and will call upon the name of the Lord.

The sacrifice of Thanksgiving. Now, think of the imagery of that. Now, Psalms is Old Testament. Psalms was written back in the days of the Old Testament economy, the sacrificial system.

And so, when you find words like sacrifice, the image comes up immediately of the sacrifice, bringing the lambs and other forms of sacrifice and laying them on the altar.

And so, this is exactly the imagery that the psalmist is trying to convey to us that our Thanksgiving is actually an offering to the Lord.

And so, but it's in response to the Lord and all of his benefits toward me. God is good. And he's gracious and he's merciful.

And even the things that we might sometimes and oftentimes label bad or not so good, even those things are good.

Because all things are working together for our ultimate good. That is, we can be sure of that. Those who love the Lord are called according to his purpose.

We've heard that passage tonight. Okay. So, Thanksgiving is my response to the goodness of God. Number two, confession is my response to the holiness of God.

Confession is my response to the holiness of God. Now, why would that be? Think about it for a moment.

What is sin? Sin is unholy. Sin is anything that is an affront to God. Against his word.

Against his law. Against his nature. His character. Sin kind of, in a sense, stands in stark contrast from the holiness.

The perfection. The purity of God. And so, when I'm confessing because my confession is motivated by and generated by, becomes a response to the perfections of God, the great worth of God, the holiness of God.

Psalm 51. One of my favorite psalms. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness. According to the multitude of your tender mercies.

Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. And cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions. And my sin is always before me.

Against you. You only have I sinned. And done this evil in your sight. That you may be found just when you speak. And blameless when you judge. David is putting, he doesn't use the word holy.

But he is making a reference to the nature of God. The person of God. And though all of the attributes of God are equal.

God's not some of this and some of that. He's all love. He's all purity. He's all holiness. But holiness certainly is the overarching attribute of God.

And so, this is what David's doing. His sin is ever before him. And he's saying, God, you know, respond to it. Not according to wrath and judgment.

But according to your loving kindness and mercy. Because I've sinned against you. It's very important that we understand that biblical concept.

That though we do sin against other people. And we need to confess our sins when we sin against a brother or sister. We can even sin against our own bodies.

The Bible tells us that too. But above all of that, all of our sin is against God. It's against him. And so, when we consider who he is, that our sin has actually offended him.

Deeply offended him. It is an absolute affront to him. When we consider that, then it enhances our prayers of confession.

Because confession is a response to the holiness of God. Number three. Intercession is my response to the love of God for his people.

And the mercy of God for lost sinners. Intercession. Prayer of intercession. Intercession. Where we pray for someone else. Where we, in a sense, intercede for them.

In Jesus is our example. The Bible says he ever lives to make intercession for us. He prays for us. And that's a model for us.

An example for us. We're to pray for one another. And I would suggest to you that the prayer of intercession, our prayers of intercession are two-pronged.

Or, in two directions. Certainly, for God's people. For our brothers and sisters in Christ. For our church. For the people of our church.

For believers around the world. We're to pray for the people of God. We're to intercede for them. And, because God loves them. As he loves me.

And I'm responding to God's love for you. When I pray for you. We prayed a little while ago. I led us in prayer. And hopefully you prayed in your own heart and spirit.

Pray for people. Many of them we know. Because they're very close to us. Some of them are right here in our church. Some are connected in other ways. And we know God loves them.

And we love them. And we pray for them. It's a response to the love of God. Psalm 28.9 Save your people and bless your inheritance. And shepherd them also.

And bear them up forever. So, save your people. We're praying. Not for soul salvation. But salvation in many other ways.

Blessing. And so forth. For God's shepherding in their lives. And so forth. So, this is an intercession for God's people. And I would add this to this. Be specific. Be specific. Be specific when you pray for others.

When you intercede for others. Be detailed in your prayers for a brother and sister in Christ. Don't just say, bless so and so. How many times have you prayed a prayer like that?

Oh God, please bless our pastor. Father, I'm glad you pray for me. But I would hope you'd be a little more specific than that. You know.

I want God's blessing. But if you know something specific. Then pray specifically. And this is how we need to pray for God's people.

As for the lost in sin. The unredeemed sinner. We're to intercede for them as well. 2 Peter 3.9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise.

As some count slackness. But is longsuffering toward us. Not willing that any should perish. But that all should come to repentance. We don't know. God's not going to save everyone.

We know that. And do we know who God is going to save? No. Should we pray for anyone and everyone to be saved?

To come to repentance? And to trust Christ as the Lord is there? Absolutely. We're to intercede for the lost to be saved. And so intercession is my response to the love of God for His people.

And the mercy of God for lost sinners. Number four. Petition. Petition is my response to the power and wisdom of God.

The power and wisdom of God. Power. Power. Of course in the sense that we're praying for certain things that we need.

Praying God would meet certain needs. And we're praying in response to God's power. We know He's able. There isn't anything we could ask Him to do that He's not fully able to do.

Does He always give us everything we ask for? No. If He does you, I really would like to talk to you after the service. Because then I'll just let you pray all my prayers.

And then, no, I'm just kidding. But God is fully able. And so we're responding to His great power. Infinite power. There's nothing too hard.

And two, there's nothing too small for God to do. Either. If it's important. Someone has said. In fact, I think it was Adrian Rogers. It's important to you.

It's important to God. But thinking about the power. Responding to His power. But why wisdom? Well, God knows what we need. And He knows how to give the right thing.

In the right way. At the right time. And we don't always agree with Him on that. Do we? No. We don't. But we're just stupid.

Compared to God, we don't know. We don't have a wisdom like God. And so we're responding to God's wisdom. We're asking for something. And most of the time when we ask Him, we want it right then.

We really don't want to wait. And we certainly don't want God to give us something different. Or for God to say, no. We don't want those things. But we must come in prayer.

With our prayers and petition. With those two things in mind. That He is fully able. He has the power to do all things. And He has the wisdom to do the right thing.

And what He does is always right. Whether we agree with Him or not. Matthew 7.11. Matthew 7.11. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him?

Now, you say, I'm not sure I see the connection of this verse. Well, you know, and really I think the first half of this verse is a bit of tokenism.

I mean, I don't know that we always know how to give good gifts to our children. All right. So this is maybe an overstatement. But it's that way for a purpose.

Because He's showing a contrast. But if you know how, I mean, you have the wisdom and the know-how, the ability to give just the right thing, good gifts to your children.

And if you know that, then how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things? Now, it doesn't repeat know how to give because the contrast is already there.

We already see what He's talking about. So God certainly knows how to give good things. And He knows what the good things are. So it's the power and wisdom of God.

Petition is my response to those two things, those aspects of the character of God. Number five, praise. That's an important part of prayer, isn't it?

Praise is that part of your prayer life. Well, we just praise it. I challenge you, I really do, and I challenge myself with you, to do a little inventory of your prayer life.

And, you know, just kind of estimate how much time you spend on these various aspects of prayer. You know, or do you actually spend some time on all of these?

Or is it weighted more toward one thing or maybe even exclusively to one or two things? Usually, you know, help me, Lord, I need something, or forgive me, Lord.

But we need to insert praise and thanksgiving. And the beauty of it is that even in our petitions, they can be mixed with thanksgiving and praise, and ought to be.

It's not that we need to have kind of a segmented kind of prayer life, and so now I'm going to spend five minutes. And you may be that organized, you know. You know, I'm going to spend five minutes on Thanksgiving, and then I'm going to move to petition and say, I maybe need ten minutes for that.

And then five minutes for, you know, confession of sin. No, actually, maybe 15. I've been a bad boy this day. And, you know, it kind of segmenting and organizing.

Now, it all blends together. We understand that, don't we? So, praise is something, too, that's blended in with the other elements of our prayer life. But praise is my response to the person of God.

To the person of God. And, really, that word person doesn't do justice. It's a little difficult to get it down to one word. Well, let me read the scripture, and then let me explain.

Psalm 145, verses 1 to 3. I will extol. Now, when's the last time you used that word in the sentence? Extol. I think I gave you maybe another word, a couple words.

Exalt. Raise up. I will raise you up, my God, O King. And I will bless your name forever and ever.

Bless your name. What does that mean? Name. Now, you find that all throughout scripture. You know, blessing his name.

Honoring his name. Proclaiming his name. The name. Well, the name. I mean, what is in a name?

I mean, right here in this room, we all have different names. There might be some duplicates. Let me think a minute here. But we have a name. And that's what we go by.

I'm Don. I'm Don. All right. So when you look at me, well, that's Don. Or Pastor Don. Whatever you want to call me. All right. Well, what does that name mean? I mean, it's just simply what distinguishes me from someone else.

I mean, we have other distinguishing features. You know, I look different than anybody else in here. We all look different. All right. But the name further identifies me. Right?

Now, the thing about it is, in our culture, that's about as far as it goes. The name just identifies me. That's who I am. I mean, it could just be a number. You know, I'm number 53.

I don't know why I picked that number. 53. You know, that, if you all had a different number, then we would all be different.

And I could just say, well, there's number 27 over there. That's you, Oscar. Oscar's number 27. Beyond the name, I mean, in our culture as it is today, with some exception, I'll get to that in a minute, and our culture basically for the name is just a distinguishing thing.

It just distinguishes us. Now, when we get to the last name, you know, family names used to be very important, too. And, you know, in some circles, and to some extent, for all of us, there is still some importance attached, significance attached to the last name, the family name.

But beyond that, there's very little. But it used to be in America, in our culture, and, again, to some extent still is, but not anything like it used to be, there was character attached to the name.

And a name was connected with a certain character of the person. Their character, their integrity, their trustworthiness.

You know, we could even also say it used to be that the last name identified their occupation. You know, there were other connections, you know, that identified the person.

Who they were, what kind of person they were, whether they could be trusted or not. You know, their nature, good nature, bad nature, foul nature, you know, their occupation, what they did for a living.

You know, on and on and on. Now, we're getting close to what it means here when the Bible says, Bless your name.

It doesn't just simply mean that we're going to speak his name, and that somehow is his blessing, or honor that name, so that we don't want anybody to take it flippantly, or, you know, that's part of it, but that's, it's much more than that.

And by the way, what is the name? Well, it's Yahweh. Yahweh. Yahweh. But it's not just a name. It is, it's pointing to the person.

The character of that person. The nature of that person. The greatness of that person. And so when we're blessing the name of the Lord, we are, we are blessing what that name represents.

Who our God is. And how great he is. His worth. His value. The things he has done. And his promises.

And, you know, we could, all that's wrapped up in this idea of blessing your name. And the psalmist says, Forever and ever, every day I will bless you.

And I will praise your name. There it is again. Forever and ever. Great is the Lord. That's the name, by the way. Lord, all capital letters, is translation of the Hebrew name Yahweh, the sacred name for God.

By the way, the name Yahweh has a tremendous depth of meaning. He is the I Am. The name revealed to Moses.

We've kind of gone through this before. I Am that I Am. In fact, it's believed that the word Yahweh is derived from the, what they call the to be verb in the Hebrew language.

The to be. And that's very interesting. You see the connection. Very similar. Even though Yahweh is a unique name all by itself. But it seems that it's very similar to the to be.

So that's the idea behind the name of Yahweh. He is the I Am. I always have been. And I am. And always will be. No beginning.

No end. So to bless His name, we're blessing Him and glorifying Him for His eternal nature. That would be just one thing.

And we could add many, many other things that are included in that name. So great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. And His greatness is unsearchable. And we know His greatness.

But we don't know it all. And in a large, large sense, we cannot know it all. Not yet. Adrian Rogers, again, a little sparkler here from Adrian Rogers, prays, infuses the energy of God and confuses the enemies of God.

I really like that. All right. So that was all under the heading of prayer is my response to the character of God. And now we'll go to another one.

See how far we can get with it. Prayer is my response to the will of God. Prayer is my response to the will of God. God's will, of course, is not only the supreme and highest command for us.

I mean, to find it, to be in it, to know it. Not only the highest command for us, but it is what pleases God. For us to discover His will, to search for it and know it and live it, to order our lives according to it.

That's what pleases God. Here's some noteworthy quotes because the hardest part about the will of God is, at least in our perspective, from our advantage point, is how to find it, how to find the will of God.

Here's some quotes. There's Gilbert's preacher back in my days at seminary. But he said this, If you want to find the will of God, obey Him in the big areas of life.

What would those be, by the way? Well, salvation might be the first one on the list. Purity, obedience to His Word, etc. So obey God in the big things, big areas of life, those big categories.

And then the will of God is to do what you want to do. Now, how do you like that image? Doesn't quite sound right to us, does it?

But it is right. If you'll obey God in those areas of life that He's clearly revealed, in fact, we could put it another way, obey the part of God's will you already know.

And that's a huge area. If you will line yourself up with His Word, basically what He's saying, then, in a sense, you can do what you want to do because you're in right relationship with Him.

Psalm 37.4 is a good, I think, good text for this. Delight yourself also in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. We like the last part, but we're not sure we understand the first part.

In fact, a lot of people would quickly quote the last part without even any regard for the first part of the verse. This is basically what Larry Gilbert is saying.

Delight yourself also in the Lord. We delight ourselves in Him. His Word, His ways, His nature, His character. We love Him. Our desire is always to please Him and honor Him.

We delight ourselves in the Lord. And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Whatever you want. Whatever you want. You say, well, what if I want the wrong thing? We're not going to give you the wrong thing.

That's a contradiction to the delighting yourself in the Lord. To want things selfishly is not to delight yourself in the Lord. To want things that are not good for you is not delighting yourself in the Lord.

So you see how those two come together. Jerry Falwell, he said, when I have to make a big decision, I pray over it, make the decision, and then head toward it as though it were right until God tells me different.

That's kind of interesting. How subjective is it when we have decisions to make? How subjective is God's answer to our prayers concerning His will?

I mean, how do you know? You say, well, Pastor, I just know it. I just know it in here. Or I know the wrong way. I've got this. This used to be a favorite little kind of phrase.

People say, I just have a check in my spirit. A check in my spirit. Have you ever said that or heard that? A check in my spirit. That's still very subjective, isn't it?

It just comes to the point when you're praying, you're living according to His Word, you're keeping short accounts with God, you're walking with Him, you have a decision to make, and you pray about it, and then you make a decision.

You make a decision and you go toward it until God tells you to do it. That makes it much simpler, doesn't it? Andy Stanley.

I'm not a real fan of Andy Stanley, but I put this quote in there. I think a lot of his father, but not too hip on Andy Stanley. But if you are, then I apologize.

Here's what he said. For a true believer, the will of God is not a tightrope that we should fear falling off of. It is a canyon that we have to climb out of. Now think about that.

Do you think, really, that as a child of God, beloved of God, one who desires to please Him and honor Him, that God really would have us going through life like we're on a tightrope, just risking falling out of God's will just at every turn.

That doesn't line up with the nature of God. I think Stanley's right. It's more like a canyon that you have to deliberately climb out of. I think of those.

Those are interesting. Now, then we get to my artwork. And, you know, I always have to put a little picture in here. And I hope even the picture itself is self-explanatory.

I think I have mentioned this before. I might have even given you a little rougher diagram of it. But, this is a visual illustration. Do you get it?

I mean, is it self-explanatory? What's the big brown thing? That's an island. It has a little harbor there. There's the ship.

It has to make its way into the safe harbor. But, there's the coral reef. Possibility of shipwreck. But, there's only one way in.

One way in. And, by the way, this is not imaginary. This came from a, there's an actual island. And, maybe many, but this is a very typical thing you used to do.

And, and so, there's only one way in. And, so, there are poles placed in a line. And, so, when you navigate your ship around until all those poles are in perfect line, then you head that way and you know that you'll make it into the harbor safely.

All right? very simple concept. And so, you know, to not overly spiritualize it, but, as a helpful illustration, we can see that there are at least four things that God has provided to give us guidance in His will.

His word would be number one. And so, we need to stay in His word. Does God's word answer every question we might have specifically? I mean, there are decisions that we need to make that the Bible knows nothing about.

I mean, there's certain scenarios and situations, modern things, and things that, you know, the Scripture doesn't know anything about. All right? But, the Bible can give us and will give us biblical principles that will apply to every situation.

And so, we study Scripture. We look to the word of God. But then, also, there's prayer. Right? Now, prayer is not separate from Scripture.

You're not going to pray and expect God to give you some answer contrary to what He's already said in His word. I mean, they're going to line up always. And that's the whole point, isn't it?

So, prayer, I mean, there's the word of God and prayer. Those two things are lining up. And then, He gives us our spirits.

Now, I'm not so much talking about the Holy Spirit here because the Holy Spirit is involved in all of these things. And, by the way, you know, you're not going to just simply have an audience with the Holy Spirit.

But, I'm talking about your own spirit. The Holy Spirit works. It works. And prompts. And, you know, gives us peace. Or, we just, it's indescribable always.

You know, you'll say, well, I don't know how to describe it, but just know that this doesn't feel right to me. And, if you are a born-again believer and you are in His word and in prayer, you've lined those things up, then, yeah, you can feel a certain way and God is speaking to you that way.

Not, again, contrary to or absent from His word and prayer. I mean, you're not going to just line up spirit by itself.

You know, we're not guided by the way we feel. But, it is one thing that God uses to give us direction. And then, the last thing is people, and I'm talking about godly, believers, counselors, people you know are in God's word and are people of prayer and they are walking with God and you can see that and they can give you counsel.

And so, here are just some four poles that we can line up and navigate our ship, our lives, in the right direction.

And so, I think it's a helpful illustration. Thank you.