The Privilege of Prayer

N. Hunter Strength

Beacon Teens

28 October 2022

The Privilege of Prayer

If you play sports, you may have had a coach who told you to run but didn’t pay attention to your effort levels. This meant it was up to you to work hard enough to be prepared for the game. Some people on the team trained hard, and others hardly worked at all. The truth always became apparent during the games. The teammates who had worked hard were able to compete at a high level, while the ones who had slacked off in practice were exposed.

Have you ever felt exposed or vulnerable before? That feeling that people have discovered the you that maybe you didn’t want them to see or that the image you built up has come crumbling down? Maybe you were riding down the road with friends from church when you got cut off and you got so mad that something slipped out of your mouth. Or maybe you were trash talking another team only to get beat. Well, whatever it might be, we don’t like this feeling of being “found out” do we?

Well, in our passage today, which is Hebrews 4:11-16, we are going to see that Jesus sees the real you. Not the you that you put on for show in front of your family, your friends, or your church, but He actually sees you. He knows what you do and why you do it. He knows your thoughts and the things that you love. Essentially what we find in today’s text is that you and I are completely exposed when it comes to Jesus. And with that being the case, we find ourselves thinking, “If He knows all of that, then He knows how sinful I am! And if He knows that, then how could I ever have peace with Him? How could I ever belong to Him? How could He ever care for me? And how could I ever come to Him?” It’s that question that I want us to hold as we are going to look at the topic of the privilege of prayer today.

When I was a young Christian, I fell into a really bad mindset. I convinced myself that if I sinned that I was so bad that I couldn’t come before the Lord because of how guilty I felt so I would simply not pray. Have you ever felt that way before? Have you ever thought, “How can I read my Bible or pray after saying that, or doing that?” Well, that’s what I want us to have in mind as we learn that just as Jesus knows how sinful you are, He also wants you to know how gracious He is.

So, whenever you feel this way, I want you to think of these three things:

My Hope Is Built On the Greatness of Jesus

My Heart Is Warmed By The Gentleness of Jesus

My Help Is From The Graciousness of God

My Hope Is Built On the Greatness of Jesus

You may remember the old song, “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand.” That goes, “My hope is built on nothing less, Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand.” Well, that song goes extremely well with what we learn here in verse fourteen where we are reminded of Jesus being our Great High Priest.

Now, the duty of the High Priest would be that he would go into the Holy of Holies every year to sprinkle blood on the sacrifice on the Ark of the Covenant and if he were to do it incorrectly, God would kill him. And as the High Priest would go back to preform this task, he would walk through this big curtain that would cover him up so people couldn’t see in. Well, what we see here is that Jesus is the Great High Priest who has been covered with the curtain of heaven and He is the One who took His blood into the holy place in Heaven and He didn’t just do His job and leave, but He went in to sit down. This would be unthinkable. But the fact that Jesus did this states that Jesus is absolutely as good as it gets.

So what we learn here is that Jesus is the Priest and the sacrifice. Jesus is the One who satisfies the Father forever and so whenever we begin to feel terrified, exposed or vulnerable, we must remind ourselves that my righteousness is not in me but my righteousness is the righteousness of Christ. What I want us to hold onto for the rest of our lives is that Jesus Christ paid absolutely everything to purchase our redemption. And what this verse says is basically, “Hey, since this is true and you and I believe it, hold onto it with all you have!”

At this time, these people are going through a really hard spot and they are tempted to leave the faith, but the writer is saying, “Don’t quit! Don’t give up! Hold on to the Lord because He is worth it!” So whenever you feel tempted to give in because you feel like the worst Christian in the world and you think to yourself, “What’s the point? I should just give up.” This passage screams, “No! Look at Jesus! He is your righteousness.” But that can be hard can’t it? When everything around you is screaming for you to throw in the towel, it can be hard not to want to give in. And that leads us into the next point which is:

My Heart Is Warmed By the Gentleness of Jesus

Yes, it’s hard, yes it hurts, yes it is tiring, but Jesus gets us. He isn’t looking at us with a frown on His face and saying, “Pick it up, loser!” Instead, He wraps His arms of grace around us and says, “I know it’s hard, I know it hurts. But look to me, I overcame it for you.”

I read about a boy who noticed a sign, “Puppies for sale.” He asked, “How much do you want for the pups, mister?”... “Twenty-five dollars, son.” The boy’s face dropped. “Well, sir, could I see them anyway?” The man whistled and the mother dog came around the corner, followed by four cute puppies, wagging their tails and yipping happily. Then lagging behind, another puppy came around the corner, dragging one hind leg. “What’s the matter with that one, sir?” the boy asked. “Well, son, that puppy is crippled. The vet took an X-ray and found that it doesn’t have a hip socket. It will never be right.” The man was surprised when the boy said, “That’s the one I want. Could I pay you a little each week?” The owner replied, “But, son, you don’t seem to understand. That pup will never be able to run or even walk right. He’s going to be a cripple forever. Why would you want a pup like that?” The boy reached down and pulled up his pant leg, revealing a brace. “I don’t walk too good, either.” Looking down at the puppy, the boy continued, “That puppy is going to need a lot of love and understanding. It’s not easy being crippled!” The man said, “You can have the puppy for free. I know you’ll take good care of him.”

Even though Jesus was never crippled by sin, the Bible says that He has sympathy for us because He faced the same temptations we do, but He didn’t fail. Are you hurting today? Have you been beat up by your sin this week and feel like you can’t run to Jesus because you’ve messed up too many times. I want you to know that’s what the Devil wants. But you need to know that Jesus graciously sympathizes with us poor, beat down sinners. And because that is true, we find our last reminder:

My Help Is From the Graciousness of God

Can you imagine hosting a dinner party where instead of having friends come over and share their lives with you, they came dressed for a costume party and stayed in character all night? It would be an awful party. Johnson writes, “I wonder if this is what it’s like to be Jesus with the church. He’s invited us into his home, not just as friends but as newly adopted members of his family. Even though it was nowhere on the invitation, we tend to show up in costume, never breaking character, pretending to be this perfect version of ourselves. There’s no way to connect with us because we refuse to be real” (Taylor Johnson, In the Altogether [self-publ., 2019], 3).

This isn’t what Christ desires of us. He’s not looking for you to put make-up over the bumps and bruises of your life to come into His presence. Instead, He wants you to come just as you are so that He can make you into what He wants you to be. Now, what we see in verse 16 is that through Christ we may now boldly come before the throne of grace. We see that the Father is seated upon a throne so that we don’t think that we can come before Him nonchalantly, like its a joke. But even though it is a throne, it is a throne of grace! And so, what we learn here is that because He is so great, gentle and gracious, we can boldly come before Him who is pleased to sit upon a throne of graciousness!

So, in the middle of the trials, the hurts, the temptations of life. When we are tempted to run back to our old selves and leave it all behind, we are reminded to come running into the arms of grace. And this is the privilege of prayer. That God knows what we are, He knows who we are, and He still looks at us, pats His lap and says, “I know you’re tired. So, come spend a while with me. The world my beat you up, but I am greater than the whole world and I love you.”