How do you are feeling once you see the phrase prayer in a sermon title, or when the preacher broadcasts that at present’s sermon is about prayer? Oh no. Right here we go.
Not many people really feel like we pray sufficient. We would even pray an excellent deal, and even earnestly, and nonetheless really feel a gnawing sense of guilt when the subject comes up, identical to when the topic of evangelism comes up. Preachers know this. Do you wish to make folks really feel responsible? Speak about prayer and evangelism. Few of us really feel instinctively like we do sufficient of both.
Added to this, we’ve got the pervasive secular assumptions of recent life — that each one that issues is the seeable, hearable, touchable, tastable. The otherworldly, particularly the divine, is unwelcome and even out of bounds in well mannered firm. We’re bombarded with the secular imaginative and prescient and its results every day, by means of screens and thru relationships with folks influenced by screens, and thru folks influenced by different individuals who have screens. You possibly can’t escape the affect of secularism with out completely withdrawing. The query isn’t whether or not you’re being influenced, however whether or not another, better affect is getting and maintaining traction in your soul.
God is not going to have the prevailing affect in your life if his sensible technique of affect primarily really feel compulsory. However God himself doesn’t intend for his means to be obligations. They don’t seem to be technique of obligation however technique of grace. As J.C. Ryle says,
The “technique of grace” . . . comparable to Bible studying, personal prayer, and often worshiping God in Church . . . are appointed channels by means of which the Holy Spirit conveys recent provides of grace to the soul.
I didn’t come to Oakhurst this weekend to make you are feeling responsible, nor did I come simply to go to household (good as that’s); I got here primarily as a result of I need you to get pleasure from “recent provides of grace to your soul” by means of listening to God’s voice in his phrase, having his ear in prayer, and belonging to the covenant fellowship of the native church. Within the Sunday college hour, we centered on God’s phrase; tonight, we’ll concentrate on fellowship. Now in these moments, we flip our consideration to prayer.
Three Wonders of Prayer
My particular prayer this morning is that the Spirit of God, dwelling in you, may be happy to start or renew a shift in your perspective on prayer — a shift in your thoughts and in your coronary heart from prayer as obligation to prayer as alternative, from prayer as obligation to prayer as delight, from prayer as burden and dread to prayer as blessing and pleasure.
In that hope, I’d like for us to linger over three wonders of Christian prayer, and shut with just a few concepts for sensible prayer habits in our lives.
1. Our Father Not Solely Speaks However Listens
We begin right here with a abstract of our focus within the Sunday college hour: our God is a talking God. The preamble to Christian prayer is that God speaks. Prayer is responsive. Prayer is speaking to God, however it’s not a dialog we begin. God initiates. He’s communicative. He’s talkative. He speaks first, and oh does he love to talk!
- He reveals himself in his creation (Romans 1:19–20).
- He reveals himself climactically in his Son (Hebrews 1:1–2; John 1:1, 14).
- He reveals himself within the God-breathed phrases of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20–21).
Then, amazingly, this Nice Speaker himself stops and stoops. He cups his ear, and motions to us to talk. “What do you suppose? What do you are feeling? What do you want?” Our Father desires to listen to from his kids. He desires us to hope to him in view of who he’s revealed himself to be.
So, in prayer, we his creatures and his kids reply to our Father’s phrases in our personal phrases. Prayer is chatting with the God who has spoken first, responding to the God who has initiated the connection and dialog. And we pray to God as our Father. The true God isn’t a distant, distracted deity. We don’t want cheat codes, flailing arms, or repeated phrases to grab his consideration.
Amazingly, God himself loves his folks, smiles on us, and is gladly attentive to our wants. He desires to listen to from his kids and make them completely happy endlessly in him. He desires us to hope to him as “our Father” — which is an particularly Christlike option to pray.
Name Him ‘Father’
Historic Israelites knew God’s covenant identify (Yahweh) and approached him in worship and prayer in view of his covenant love and faithfulness, however they didn’t dare to name him “Father.” Calling God “Father” is new within the human life and ministry of Jesus. And when Jesus taught his disciples (and us) to hope, he started with “Our Father . . .” Repeatedly, significantly within the Gospel of John, Jesus calls the God of Israel “Father.” Particularly memorable is his personal prolonged prayer to his Father in John 17, on the evening earlier than he died:
Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son could glorify you. . . . And now, Father, glorify me in your personal presence with the glory that I had with you earlier than the world existed. . . . Holy Father, maintain [the people you have given me] in your identify, which you have got given me, that they might be one, whilst we’re one . . . simply as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that additionally they could also be in us, in order that the world could imagine that you’ve got despatched me. . . . Father, I need that additionally they, whom you have got given me, could also be with me the place I’m, to see my glory that you’ve got given me since you beloved me earlier than the muse of the world. O righteous Father, although the world doesn’t know you, I do know you, and these know that you’ve got despatched me. (John 17:1, 5, 11, 21, 24, 25)
Jesus calling God “Father” isn’t solely modeling for us learn how to pray, however that is additionally an invite for the way to attract close to to God — as our loving, gracious, beneficiant heavenly Father.
Nevertheless, we sinners want greater than Jesus’s instance and invitation. Being sinners, rebels, undeserving of God’s riches — the truth is, deserving of his punishments — how can we, in honesty and never utter naivety, name the residing God “Father”? God could certainly communicate to sinners like us, however does he hear? And hear as a Father? That results in a second marvel.
2. God’s Son Secures and Certifies Our Entry to God’s Ear
Now let’s go to 2 passages in Hebrews: Hebrews 4:14–16 and 10:19–23. Maybe you checked out these this week, and even this morning, and thought, Huh, these appear very related. They’re. And they’re structurally and conceptually central for the epistle to the Hebrews.
“God is not going to have the prevailing affect in your life if his sensible technique of affect primarily really feel compulsory.”
You possibly can see all of Hebrews 1–4 as an prolonged introduction, chapters 11–13 because the prolonged conclusion, and chapters 5–10 as the guts, the primary physique and message. And of these center chapters, 5–7 painting Jesus as the nice and ultimate excessive priest, and eight–10 present him to be the nice and ultimate sacrifice. That’s the guts of Hebrews: the individual of Christ as our priest, and the work of Christ as our sacrifice.
These two parallel passages in chapters 4 and 10 are like the doorway and exit to the guts of the letter, and so they categorical the primary pastoral burden of the letter: Draw close to to God, maintain quick to Jesus. Don’t coast, don’t drift, don’t fall away. Don’t cease believin’, however cling to Jesus, and draw close to to God in him.
So, I wish to learn each passages to you, again to again, and as I do, hear for six emphases they’ve in frequent:
- the point out of the nice excessive priest,
- whose private identify is Jesus,
- who has handed by means of the heavens (the curtain) into the very presence of God, and due to this fact
- the decision to carry quick our religion in him,
- to attract close to to God by means of him, and
- to take action with confidence
And to be clear, this pertains to greater than prayer, however a minimum of prayer — and for now, prayer is probably the signature expression of our drawing close to. Hebrews 4:14–16 says,
Since then we’ve got an important excessive priest who has handed by means of the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, allow us to maintain quick our confession. For we wouldn’t have a excessive priest who’s unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, however one who in each respect has been tempted as we’re, but with out sin. Allow us to then with confidence draw close to to the throne of grace, that we could obtain mercy and discover grace to assist in time of want.
Now, right here’s Hebrews 10:19–23:
Subsequently, brothers, since we’ve got confidence to enter the holy locations by the blood of Jesus, by the brand new and residing approach that he opened for us by means of the curtain, that’s, by means of his flesh, and since we’ve got an important priest over the home of God, allow us to draw close to with a real coronary heart in full assurance of religion, with our hearts sprinkled clear from an evil conscience and our our bodies washed with pure water. Allow us to maintain quick the confession of our hope with out wavering, for he who promised is devoted.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, the primary word struck right here is that we have the nice and ultimate excessive priest! We’ve him already, proper now. He has come in the end. He died as the nice and ultimate sacrifice for our sin. He rose in conquer sin and loss of life, and he ascended, going by means of the heavens, by means of the curtain, into the very presence of God Almighty, the place he sat down, his work full, on the proper hand of Majesty.
We have him. That is now not a future promise. It is a current actuality! So, maintain quick your belief in him, and your confession of him as Lord. And with confidence, with boldness, with surety, draw close to — together with your entire life, drawing close to to him by means of his phrase, and drawing close to to him along with his church, and specifically drawing close to to him in prayer. That’s the joint message of the 2 passages.
Boldness to Method
Now, there are a few additions in Hebrew 10. The primary is in Hebrews 10:19–20:
We’ve confidence to enter the holy locations by the blood of Jesus, by the new and residing approach that he opened for us.
That is new with the approaching and ascending of Jesus. The previous approach of the temple and its monks and rituals and escalating areas of holiness, from the courtroom of the Gentiles to the frequent Jews, to the Holy Place, to the Holy of Holies — that entire temple cultus — wasn’t the actual factor. It was symbolic (Hebrews 9:9); it anticipated the actual factor, which didn’t come till Jesus got here and rose and went into heaven as our pioneer. In Jesus, we’ve got a brand new and residing approach into the very presence of God that was not out there to Abraham, not out there to Moses, not out there to David, not out there to Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, however now new to us who’re in Christ. What a possibility!
A second added element is Hebrews 10:22:
allow us to draw close to with a real coronary heart in full assurance of religion, with our hearts sprinkled clear from an evil conscience and our our bodies washed with pure water.
What does Hebrews imply by “our hearts sprinkled clear” and “our our bodies washed with pure water”? And the way does that result in our with the ability to draw close to to God with confidence, particularly in prayer?
This point out of sprinkling goes again to Moses and the folks of Israel who had escaped slavery in Egypt. At Mount Sinai, God makes his covenant with them, and to enter the covenant, the folks provide sacrifices in Exodus 24, and Moses takes the blood (“the blood of the covenant”) and throws half in opposition to the altar, representing God. The opposite half, he throws — that’s, he sprinkles — on the folks.
On this bodily act of flinging animal blood on the folks, one thing greater than the mere bodily is occurring. In and of itself, the sprinkled blood doesn’t do something to alter the folks or deal lastly with their sins. However by this act, this memorable act, the folks enter into covenant with God.
And for those who have been to ask an Israelite just a few months later, “Hey, how are you aware you’re in covenant with God?” one reply he may give is, “I keep in mind the blood sprinkled on us. A drop landed on my left shoulder. It was actual; it occurred. I can guarantee you I’m a part of the folks in covenant with God. I had the blood of the covenant on me.”
Washed and Sprinkled
However now Hebrews 10 takes this to a new-covenant stage. Hebrews 10:22 says that in Christ we’ve got had “our hearts sprinkled clear.” How did that occur? By way of religion. Religion within the coronary heart trusts that when Jesus died on the cross, and shed his blood — objectively, publicly, unquestionably, indisputably — his life was standing in for mine. His loss of life was the loss of life I deserved.
However religion like this isn’t fairly as cut-and-dried for the Christian as blood on the shoulder was for the traditional Israelite. There’s nonetheless some subjectivity right here with religion. Jesus’s sacrifice is goal, however how do I do know I’m included? My coronary heart was sprinkled, not my shirt. And so, Hebrews attracts within the new-covenant inauguration ritual, baptism, to assist: “. . . and our our bodies washed with pure water.” Baptism represents the washing away of sin in our hearts, within the interior individual, however baptism can also be exterior and goal and memorable. If you happen to have been baptized as a believer, and baptized in a devoted church neighborhood of moderately diligent and discerning Christians (who have been saying, in impact, by means of baptizing you, “We imagine you actually imagine and Jesus’s blood covers you”), then do not forget that baptism as help on your assurance, and pray with confidence.
Baptism is not only a drop in your shirt, however your entire physique submerged in water, saying, “This one belongs to Jesus. This one has saving religion.” Keep in mind that occasion, and draw close to with a real coronary heart in full assurance of religion. How valuable is an effective believer-baptism! It didn’t prevent, however God means for it to assist guarantee you that you just’re saved by means of religion in Jesus — and provide help to to return confidently in prayer.
So, the Father not solely speaks however listens. And the Son secures and certifies our entry to God’s ear in prayer. That’s it, proper? Ought to we pray to shut?
Properly, not so quick. If solely our lives have been so easy! They don’t seem to be. We’ve our ups and downs, our seasons of dullness and doubt, our struggles, our indwelling sin, our weaknesses — oh so many weaknesses, irrespective of how a lot we attempt to venture ourselves as robust. And so, there may be yet one more important marvel of Christian prayer.
3. God’s Spirit Helps Us in Our Weak spot
Let’s end with Romans 8:26–27, and that is so valuable for the marvel and energy of prayer, and it’s maybe usually ignored in our day. Romans 8:26–27 says,
The Spirit helps us in our weak point. For we have no idea what to hope for as we ought, however the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for phrases. And he who searches hearts is aware of what’s the thoughts of the Spirit, as a result of the Spirit intercedes for the saints in response to the desire of God.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, once you pray, you pray as one who has the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in you. God himself has taken up residence in you. That is nearly too good to be true. In a approach that was not half and parcel of God’s first covenant with Israel, the risen and glorified Christ has poured out and given his Spirit to dwell in new-covenant Christians (John 7:38–39).
Now, our having the Spirit (Romans 8:9, 23) doesn’t imply we personal or management him. He additionally has us too. He’s in us, and we’re in him (Romans 8:5, 9). He’s “despatched into our hearts” (Galatians 4:6), given to us (Romans 5:5; and so forth), provided to us (Galatians 3:5), and never simply as soon as however ongoingly (Ephesians 1:17; 1 Thessalonians 4:8). By way of religion, we obtain him (Romans 8:15; and so forth). And so, because the New Testomony makes plain in a number of locations, the Spirit dwells in us (Romans 8:9–11; and so forth) and prompts, empowers, and guides our prayers (Romans 8:26–27; Ephesians 6:18; Jude 20).
For Christians, there’s a particular relationship between our prayers and our having the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 6:17–18 says to “take . . . the sword of the Spirit, which is the phrase of God, praying always within the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.” And Jude 20–21 says, “You, beloved, constructing yourselves up in your most holy religion and praying within the Holy Spirit, maintain yourselves within the love of God.” God doesn’t simply wish to hear from us and open the best way to him, leaving it in our courtroom. He offers us his personal Spirit, in us, to immediate our hearts to hope, to allow us to hope, and as Romans 8 says, to hope for us after we don’t know what to hope.
Getting Sensible
So, as women and men of the gospel, fed by God’s phrase, flanked by our fellows in Christ, we domesticate habits of prayer in three fundamental spheres: secret (Matthew 6:5–6), with firm in our marriages, households, and church buildings, and as common anchor factors in our lives (1 Thessalonians 5:17; Romans 12:12; Colossians 4:2). We’ve the chance to punctuate our lives with prayer and take the seams of our days as prompts to hope.
We flip basic intentions into particular plans. We discover our common instances and locations. Our prayers are scheduled and spontaneous — within the automotive, on the desk, in mattress. We pray by means of Scripture, in response to God’s phrase. We love, confess, give thanks, and petition. We study to hope by praying, and by praying with others.
And we finish on this word. Lest you consider prayer as merely asking God for issues, let’s make clear what’s the nice function of Christian prayer: that God himself could be our pleasure. C.S. Lewis says this so memorably:
Prayer within the sense of petition, asking for issues, is a small a part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and imaginative and prescient and delight of God its bread and wine. (“The Efficacy of Prayer,” 7)
Brothers and sisters in Christ, in mild of the Father’s listening ear, the Son’s securing and certifying achievement, and the Spirit’s wonderful indwelling and prompting and assist, I hope that you wouldn’t depart right here this morning feeling responsible or underneath obligation, however {that a} shift may start or proceed in you — from obligation to alternative.
Prayer is a chance to get pleasure from “recent provides of grace” to your soul, the most effective of which is the enjoyment of God himself.
