Teach us to Pray Powerfully

Introduction:

Breathe for a second.

Doctors have learned that breathing techniques can calm anxiety, lower stress, and deescalate feeling of anger and irritability.

That is until you don’t have any air to breathe. if you hold your breathe its not long before your body is stressed and anxious.

Martin Luther said

“To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”

Need

Luther’s point is that we all need prayer, like we need oxygen, and when we barely pray or not at all, we find stress, and anxiety rises within.

In their day

The Disciples spent a lot of time with Jesus and they asked a lot of question to Him.

Who can get in to the Kingdom of Heaven?

How come we couldn't heal the demon possessed boy?

Can I sit at the Father’s right hand side… and so on,

but the ONLY time they asked Him to teach them something was after He prayed according to

Luke 11:1 (HCSB)

He was praying in a certain place, and when He finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

In our day

Prayer is the weakest part of most people’s spiritual journey.

While stress and anxiety is at an all time high.

We need prayer, that is more powerful than our fears, anxieties and stresses.

Jesus shows us a model for such powerful prayers in Matthew 6

REVEIW

Teach us to Pray Privately

Private Prayer is commanded and surrounded by spiritual warfare

Private Prayer Changes us, our circumstances and even the will of God

Matthew 6:5–15 HCSB

“Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. I assure you: They’ve got their reward! But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. When you pray, don’t babble like the idolaters, since they imagine they’ll be heard for their many words. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask Him. “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, Your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.] “For if you forgive people their wrongdoing, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. But if you don’t forgive people, your Father will not forgive your wrongdoing.

Prayer

Powerful Prayers CANNOT be Manufactured without God

Explanation

As we read the religious leaders were missing the purpose of prayer. But to some extent you can’t blames them

400 years in the Intertestamental period there was a total silence from God.

however, during Jesus’ ministry they hear Him praying to God and they want that same connection.

In those days, prayer was different.

Now its all, seek, knock. ask and it will be given.

However prayer is and has always been instrumental to people’s faith.

The leaders are doing what many of us do, they're trying to fake it till they make it.

They’re praying in church, out of church, on the streets. Long prayers, repetitive prayers, coherent prayers and incoherent prayers and nothing is working. Their faith has burned out a while ago and they running on empty.

Illustration

Holly and I tried a new TV series out this week. I wont share which on it was because we have decided to stop watching it. In the show there was a married couple. One of the partners was famous. The other one really seemed to want to pursue restoration for whatever had come between them, however the famous one was cold, distant and unapproachable. Even though the one spouse tried to hang on as long as they could they were defeated and frustrated, yet for the sake of their public image and maintaining their reputation they remained together so people saw them as happy.

I have to imagine that Israel must have felt like the one who wanted to pursue a relationship but was getting the silent treatment.

Even trying as hard as they did for centuries when God finally begins to speak to His people we see they were checked out, mechanical, and just going through the motions.

Have you ever felt that way in your prayer life?

Like you are just going through the motions or trying to keep up appearances?

Jesus points out that they shifted from doing these things for God and instead they were trying to keep up their public image.

After praying in hopes of having their prayers heard they gave up on and hoped that people would believe their prayers are being heard even though they were not expecting them to.

Jesus offers them a different way.

Matthew 6:8 HCSB

Don’t be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask Him.

Their ritualistic prayers aimed at religious piety was not helping because their faith in prayer was lost.

All they could do was make it a public spectacle.

Argumentation

Jesus insists that prayer be done in private which revealed that they were never praying in private because they had lost faith in it.

However Jesus is about to teach them that powerful prayer is now available because Jesus, the Messiah, is here!

He has ended the silent treatment between God the Father and Israel.

So was Jesus condemning public prayer?

No. He was helping them see that God already knows your requests.

So we don’t pray to make Him aware we pray of our needs, We pray so that we are made aware of our need for Him.

Matthew 6:6 HCSB

But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Application

Don’t lose heart if you are feeling disengaged with prayer. Many People have prayed and felt that it fell on deaf ears.

Psalm 13:1–6 ESV

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Remember God sees you when you don’t see him, God knows your needs before you ask.

Powerful Prayers are not manufactured by the words used, the sequence given, tone you state them in, or the places where you stand,

Powerful Prayer is a reward to those who can connect to God Himself

Appeal

I have spent the total time in this message defending the hypocrites that Jesus was calling out.

I have likened us to them since we all have struggled to pray-let alone pray powerful prayers.

Finally, I have promised to teach you how to pray powerfully and have yet to do so.

So here it is, you will have powerful prayers when you can answer these questions

What is the reward?

What is the difference between David’s payer and Jesus example of prayer?

Whats the reward?

Lexham Theological Wordbook μισθός

misthos

V.5 miss-thauss: to cary a positive outcome for a job well done or a condemnation for a job done poorly. for the pharisees, over time, they just learned to fake it and the people’s approval become their positive outcome.

Lexham Theological Wordbook ἀποδίδωμι

apodidōmi

V.6 ah-pod-it-ah-me: A payment in exchange for something.

When is the last time you went to prayer seeking to exchange something with God?

“Here you go God this is all my dirty laundry, and all my anxieties, I would like to exchange them for righteousness and hope.”

If we can figure out the difference in David’s prayer from Jesus example of how to pray, you’ll see why people fail to pray powerfully.

What is the difference between David’s payer and Jesus example of prayer?

Psalm 13:1–2 HCSB

Lord, how long will You forget me? Forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long will I store up anxious concerns within me, agony in my mind every day? How long will my enemy dominate me?

This is, at the core, how most people in the world feel about God.

He is hidden, He has forgotten us, we are alone to our own anxieties and demise.

The world does not want to admit that they are wrestling with these same issues; life, control, death the afterlife- and they don’t like being reminded of them.

Praying serves as an agitator because fears they are trying to ignore.

Illustration

If I said I will give anyone of you 1 millions dollars and 3 days to go bring Jesus or God the Father hear so I can shake their hand,

Could you do it?

Mankind is clueless when it comes to finding God’s whereabouts. (we know He is in Heaven with Jesus and the Spirit is everywhere but...)

So the notion of prayer connecting us to God leaves people disenfranchised.

Some may be hopeful to encounter God, but without certainty people tend to avoid it so they aren’t let down.

The disconnect is within us. According to Jesus, God sees you in your prayer closet but you cannot see Him.

Do you know why God was silent for 400 years?

Sin, Israel rebelled against God, and wanted their own way over God’s way. They became the priority over God.

Sin separates us from God leaving us alienated from Him.

Our priorities are out of tune with God, mixed up, and self-centered.

Like the pharisees, we fake it until we make it but then we just stop trying to meet a standard we can never meet.

SO we begin to live for our own purpose and our own gain.

We petition God to bless our endeavors, our purpose and what we prioritize instead.

Application

When we pray with an elevated priority and purpose over God’s we have our reward.

Meaning God will freely allow you to do that, but He will not bless those requests.

Not being able to summon God because of our sinfulness leaves us without a way to receive the other reward or exchange of goods.

Thus the great desire on their part to have Jesus teach them to pray.

Matthew wrote His gospel to establish that Jesus is the one who was sent to be our reward (our exchange).

He came to us because we do not know where heaven is,

Since Jesus is God, he came and broke the silence

He also came to exchange our sin for His righteousness. God so loved the world He gave His SON

He became alienated from the Father so that we could become CHILDREN of God and call Him Father.

That is the difference. David could not pray to God as though God was His father.

Jesus rewards us with access to God like a child has access to their dad

Because of Jesus, we can call God Father and enter in to His presence whenever we want

In order for our prayers to be powerful we have to petition him and exchange

1. Our Priorities for His

2. Our Purpose for His

Our sinful pursuits and priorities will never be rewarded by God.

But through Christ, I can enter into God’s presence

As he reveals what is self-centered within me, I am able to exchange those things for His ways.

So when I leave a prayer session with God I should come in my own power and leave in His power.

Closing (band come up)

Jim’s Graduation

“Know God, and make Him known” that is God’s priority and purpose. Jesus lived with that same purpose and priority.

Israel lost interest in Knowing God and making Him known, and they were cut off and rewarded with condemnation and silence.

What do you hold as your purpose in life?

What are your priorities?

John 17:3–4 HCSB

This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One You have sent —Jesus Christ. I have glorified You on the earth by completing the work You gave Me to do.

John 17:13 HCSB

Now I am coming to You, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have My joy completed in them.

John 17:20–21 HCSB

I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in Me through their message. May they all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You. May they also be one in Us, so the world may believe You sent Me.

Jesus knew God and lived to make Him known, His closeness and joy with the Father was so desired, that the disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray.

They most powerful prayer anyone will ever experience is when they cry out to God with a heart willing to exchange their sinful way of living so that they can know God, and commit to making Him known their sole purpose in life.

When you pray that and mean it, God will reveal Himself to you, the barrier of sin will be taken away and allow you will be brought into his presence and will be able to enjoy him like a child enjoys being with their dad.

Powerful Prayer Makes God the Priority

d

Powerful Prayer Makes God’s Purpose Ours

d

Powerful Prayer are Answered through Petitioning God

Worship and Prayer