Sermon Manuscript: Prayer

Luke 11:1-15, Matthew 6:5-14, Romans 8:26-27

Throughout our series on Spiritual Disciplines, which we are defining as "any practice that God uses to draw us closer to Him", we have said that our relationhsip with God is built in many ways the same as any other relationship. It takes shared experiences, conversation, and time spent with one another trhoughout life. As with so many other relationshiops, not every day is something to write home about. Some days are downright mundane. And rest assured, it does not take fireworks each day for us to grow closer and deeper in a relationhsip. In fact, some times the mundane days are a relief. I personally am ready for a mundane week! Time in counts just as much as anything else. Time spent in silence and solitude, time spent in study, and as we will find out this week, time spent in prayer is the foundation of any relationship with God. If we want to grow closer, prayer is vital, just like air and water and Monday Night Football.

Prayer in its simplest definition is a conversation with God. it is holding a discussion like any other you have during the course of a day. it involves a initiator, a receiver, a medium, and a message. It involves at its core speaking and listening. For some it comes very naturally. For others it is a struggle. For all of us, it is essential. It is one of those practices where God promises to meet us just like Moses on Mt. Sinai and Jesus on the Mt of Olives. We come into His presence and we leave forever changed.

Prayer takes two basic formats: personal and corporate. Personal we do by ourselves and makes up the bulk of our prayer time. Corporate times of prayer are those occassions where we gather in groups of two or more and unitedly pray.

Let me begin our time together by looking at what prayer is not which is contained in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6.

Matthew 6:5 “Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues7 and on street corners so that people can see them. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. 6:6 But whenever you pray, go into your room,8 close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.9 6:7 When10 you pray, do not babble repetitiously like the Gentiles, because they think that by their many words they will be heard. 6:8 Do11 not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

The first thing to realize is that "Why" is the most important aspect of praying. The practice of prayer is NOT to be used in order to make us look better in the eyes of others. In fact, Jesus says that those who pray in order to be noticed by others violate the very tenents and the power of the practice. While it is valid that we pray together and pray out loud, at no time is it valid for the practice to be a way we build our self worth in the eyes of others. Since we have been given a negative example by Jesus, the positive of this must also be true. Pray in a way that brings glory to God, blessings to others, and deepens our personal relationship with God. That is the reason we bow our head, or raise our head, or kneel upon the floor, or sit quietly on our couch in prayer. Because we want to share time and our heart with the Creator of the Universe who wants to share His heart and His time with us.

Secondly, "What we say" is not as important as what we mean. Jesus warns that we are not to carry on with repetitive words. Just because we say something over and over does not mean we are being heard. In fact, look at Romans 8:26-27 for a moment.

Romans 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. 8:27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes on behalf of the saints according to God’s will

Here is the crux of the matter. What comes from our thoughts or our lips is only valid if it is in our hearts. What a huge relief. I don't have to come up with the words and thoughts to describe what I am experiencing or hoping or fearing. The Holy Spirit knows what is on our hearts and takes these expressions of our true selves and carries them to the ears of God. Prayer becomes less an activity and more an attitude. That is why Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to pray without ceasing. If we freely lift our hearts to God, then we are in a spirit of prayer. We can do this while at work, before meals, after a day with the family, or even while driving our car. If we do this, we move from times of prayer to a lifestyle of prayer.

Let's look to Jesus' teaching for a better understanding of prayer. Jesus gives us the basic pattern for prayer in the Disciple's Prayer which is located in Luke 11 and Matthew 6. Look at Luke 11 again with me and this time listen for the pattern Jesus gives us.

Father, may your name be honored;
may your kingdom come.
11:3 Give us each day our daily bread,
11:4 and forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And do not lead us into temptation.”

The basis for any prayer is acknowledging God with awe and reverence. Father, may your name be honored. May your kingdom come. Jesus says that effective prayer is about knowing who we are and most importantly who God is. It is making ourselves dependent upon God and submissive to God's will in our lives. It is acknowledging that things will turn out as God planned when everything on earth is completed. Therefore, we are in the midst of being called into faithfulness which God uses to bless others and transform our lives.

Another basis for prayer is petition for our needs. Give us this day our daily bread. And our house over our head. And a job to provide for our family. And the ability to relate to others in friendship. And healing for ourselves and those around us who are struggling with health issues and grief and emotional strain. God wants to know our hurts, our fears, our struggles. God wants us to share other people's hurts and fears and struggles with Him as well.

Forgive us our sins. The act of confession and receiving forgiveness is at the heart our prayer life. There is no way we can acknowledge God with awe and reverence without knowing that we need God's forgiveness in our lives. Receiving forgiveness goes hand in hand with giving forgiveness to those who hurt us. You cannot have one without the other. A sign of true repentance is the ability to forgive others in return.

And do not lead us into temptation. We all stand one thought, that is acted upon, away from creating havoc for us and those around us. Prayer is the basis for realizing that we stand in need of accepting forgiveness and that we stand in need of giving forgiveness. But who wants to keep on making the same mistakes over and over? Or who enjoys having to ask for forgiveness ad nauseum each day. That is why Jesus said that part of prayer is asking our omnipotent Holy Father to keep us from the very thing that can hold us hostage; temptation. It is a prayer for freedom and a prayer that we might be used. A part of our liturgy says, "free us for joyful obedience." And that is what asking for protection against temptation does for us.

So, per Jesus, a model prayer is part praise, part petition for our needs and the needs of others, part confession and asking for forgiveness, and part asking for continued protection. That is the pattern. But how do we pray? Let me give you four ideas that I have used over the years to help me in my prayer life.

1. Let go of yesterday and look forward to today. If you are not a person who prays, or you are someone who prays infrequently, that is okay. Know that God is more concerned about today and tomorrow than yesterday. You and I can have a fresh start. God is not sitting on high waiting to judge us for how little we pray. Rather God waits for us patiently to turn our focus to Him and meet him in times of prayer. Today is a great day to start.

2. Make use of prayer guides and helps. I often use the Psalms as guides to prayer and even use The Daily Office which has morning and evening prayers for each day. They help me focus and use Scripture to lift my eyes toward God and off of my daily concerns. Reading through a prayer book and praying it's content has been a powerful way for me to keep my prayer life fresh.

3. Since my mind wanders, I often use a process that I learned from Bill Hybels in college. He was speaking at an outdoor camp on prayer. He said that his prayer life had dwindled to nothing. Here is this supposedly high and


holy spiritual pastoral leader who admitted prayer was difficult for him. He said that his mind wandered and that the only thing he accomplished during his times of prayer were completing his to do list for the day. And I just sat there agreeing with him. He helped me understand that there were other people who experienced the same thing as me. He began to write his prayers out to God like a letter. I tried it myself and have been using this idea ever since. I have a prayer journal that I use to launch me into my prayer times. I find that after a few paragraphs, my mind is centered upon God and I can then continue to pray. Sometimes I will finish the letter to God. Other times, I just leave off mid-sentence. The important part for me is that writing is another way of centering my thoughts upon God. I use my computer to journal. You might want to simply use a spiral notebook or some other form. I would encourage all of us whose mind tends to wander to try it and see if it makes a difference for you.

4. And finally, I remind myself that God honors the prayers of his people. Let me give you two Scriptures that help me see the power of a praying people. It is far more than simply self-help. God uses our prayers to change the world.
a. Exodus 32: 9-14
b. 2 Chronicles 7:14

Jesus says in Matthew 21 that the house of God will be called a house of prayer. That means that the people of God will be known as a people of prayer. My prayer for each of you is that you will know that depths of God's riches and the heights of God's greatness. And that my friends comes through being a people of prayer. May it be true in us.