The Priority of Prayer

As human beings, we can do some amazing, mind-blowing things. We can travel to the moon. We can see images of stars and other objects over one billion miles away. We can fly as many as 853 people across the ocean or examine the inside of human cells. Unfortunately, it’s easy for us to lose the wonder of such amazing things, taking them for granted as normal, ordinary experiences, not awe-inspiring, mind-blowing ones.

Take long-distance communication, for instance. Does it amaze you that we can transmit audible and visual information around the world in mere seconds? Or are such capabilities nothing more than ordinary functions, like opening a door with a key?

But there is something far more amazing than wireless communication – this is the fact that we can pray, that is, that we can talk to God. Does it amaze you that we can speak to the God of the universe, the one who made us and who governs all things, and that he listens to what we say and even responds?

Over the next three months, with a few interruptions, we’ll focus as a church on the topic of prayer. It is my hope that doing so will both entice and equip us to advance and improve not only in our appreciation of prayer, but in our participation in prayer – both as individual followers of Christ and also as a church family.

As we begin, allow me to offer some initial disclosures. This series will not provide a complete, thorough explanation of prayer. Doing so would require many more sermons than the nine which are planned. The series will not, for instance, (1) explain in depth the various words the Bible uses for prayer, (2) examine what the Old Testament (OT) says about prayer, or (3) explore what Paul teaches about prayer in his New Testament (NT) letters. With that said, here’s what this series will seek to accomplish.

This series will focus on prayer as we read about it in the life and ministry of Christ. Through a sequence of nine sermons, we will familiarize ourselves with many key verses and passages from the four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – that say something about either (1) Christ’s practice of or (2) his teaching on prayer.

This approach will shine light on important elements and realities of prayer which will enable us to take our next steps in following Christ, as individual followers of Christ and as a church family. Titles for the sermons in this series include:

The Priority of Prayer

Pitfalls of Prayer

The Pattern of Prayer

Persistence in Prayer

Authority in Prayer

Confidence in Prayer

Humility in Prayer

Praying for Helpers

Praying for Harmony

It is our hope that as a result of this series, you will be (1) more determined and motivated to pray and (2) more confident, effective, and satisfied in your praying.

Before we move on to the first sermon in this series, I will provide you with a working definition of prayer so that we know what we are talking about when we say the word prayer. Prayeris “speaking deliberately to God.”

By speaking, we mean that we are communicating as we would in any conversation.

By deliberately, we mean that we are expressing real, personal, and clear words and thoughts, not just vague, random impressions and feelings or mindless repetitions.

By to God, we mean that we are communicating directly to God, believing that he is hearing us and will respond.

As we take our next steps in following Christ, one way to do this must be that we improve and increase our commitment to and participation in prayer. So, there is no better way to encourage our growth in prayer than to survey the role that prayer played in the life and ministry of Christ himself. In doing so, we’ll focus mainly on prayer as it occurred throughout Christ’s earthly life, but we will also acknowledge the role that prayer plays in Christ’s current, ongoing activity today.

If prayer was a main priority for Christ as the perfect Son of God and also the perfect human, how much more should we prioritize prayer in our weak and God-dependent lives today? How prominent and prevalent is the practice of prayer in your life today?

Christ prayed privately and publicly.

The first question we can ask about the role that prayer played in Christ’s earthly life is in what settings did he pray? The answer to this question is that he prayed both privately and publicly. Prayer was a crucial part of his personal, private relationship with God the Father, but it was also a crucial part of his public identification with and worship of God the Father, too. For him, prayer was not one or the other – but both.

Of praying in public, we read that he prayed publicly at his baptism (Luke 3:21):

When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened.

Before he fed the 5,000, we read that he prayed publicly then as well (Matt 14:19):

He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes.

In still another instance, we read that Christ prayed publicly for God’s blessing upon the lives of certain young children (Matt 19:13):

Little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray …

From these accounts, we see that Christ prayed aloud in public when other people were around. In Luke 11:1, we read about another instance when Christ was praying, and his disciples asked him – even interrupted him – while he was praying to teach them to pray:

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

From this example, we see that even some of Christ’s private prayers were not entirely private but were within the vicinity of others or in some place and moment when they knew he was praying.

So, the example of Christ encourages us to follow him in public prayers to God – not only being present when public prayers occur but participating in public prayers as well by praying aloud.

Undergirding Christ’s public prayer was a practice of private prayer. In my preparation for this message, I discovered at least six references in the gospels to Christ praying in a private place alone. But these six instances were not special, occasional occurrences. They were, instead, examples of what he apparently did on a very frequent basis (Luke 5:16):

He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.

From this statement, we see that Christ often or frequently or regularlystepped away from his public activities and pressing schedule to speak deliberately to God in private. Is frequent private prayer a consistent part of your life? If it was for Christ, it should be for his followers as well.

Christ prayed in the morning and evening.

Another question we can ask about Christ’s practice of prayer is not only in what settings did he pray, but when did he pray? From the gospels, we see first that he prayed in the evening.

He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there. (Matt 14:23)

Then, according to Luke 6:12, we read that he would sometimes pray all night long:

It came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God.

In addition to praying at night, we also know that Christ prayed in the morning, too (Mark 1:35):

In the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.

So, we see that Christ prayed at all times of day. Now, you might be wondering why I mentioned Christ praying at evening before praying in the morning, because in our view and way of life today, the day begins in the morning and ends at night. But according to the Jewish mindset, a day begins at nightfall and ends with daylight.

The reason for this mentality is rooted in how Moses described God’s creation of the world (Gen 1), at the end of each day, “And it was evening, and it was morning,” et al. (or “and it was evening, then it was morning…”). From a theological standpoint, this order answers a big picture question in an encouraging way. In the story of the universe as God made it, does darkness follow and extinguish light or does light follow and extinguish darkness? Does life begin brightly and end dimly or begin dimly and end brightly? Light, of course, extinguishes darkness, just as daylight comes after night. Joy comes in the morning.

So, when we see Christ praying at nightfall or into the night, we see Christ beginning his day in prayer to God the Father. And when we see Christ praying in the morning, we see Christ praying not at the end of the day but in the middle or throughout the day. From this we learn that it is wise and perhaps even necessary to begin our days by speaking deliberately to God and to also pray to God throughout the day as well. Knowing this, we learn that prayer is not a religious ritual reserved for certain religious events and moments but is a practice which should permeate our entire life and daily routine.

Do you begin your days by speaking deliberately to God, as Christ did? And do you speak to God deliberately throughout the day as well?

Christ prayed for ordinary and extraordinary reasons.

By this, I mean, that on one hand, Christ did not only pray for regular, ordinary reasons, nor did he reserve prayer only for those especially difficult moments in life when prayer seems more needed than ever. He prayed in all moments of life, the extraordinary and the comparably mundane.

According to Matt 14:19, he prayed before eating a meal:

He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes.

By doing this, he followed the usual Jewish custom in which the head of household would thank and praise God for providing the food they were about to eat. Doing so provided people with a regular reminder that they were humbly dependent upon God for their life and food. This is why we pray before our meals today! If you don’t do this, I would encourage you to add this practice to your lifestyle. Though such a practice may seem somewhat repetitive and mundane, it is profoundly helpful in maintaining a heart of gratitude and humble dependence upon God.

Christ not only prayed in such regular, comparatively mundane moments though. He also prayed before and during extraordinarily difficult experiences and trials. Before Christ chose his twelve, closest disciples (which was a crucial and significant moment), he spent an entire night in prayer (Luke 6:12):

It came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God.

And the night before his betrayal, arrest, trial, and crucifixion, he spent extended time in focused, intensive prayer outdoors in an olive grove, that is, Gethsemane (Matt 26:36):

Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.”

So, while we may rightly criticize our tendency to offer up “flare prayers” to God and to become serious about prayer in moments of crisis, our problem is not desiring to pray in such times but in desiring to pray only in such times. Like Christ, we should speak deliberately to God in regular, recurring, relatively about mundane matters, like expressing gratitude for any meal we eat, and also before and during especially difficult moments and trials that come our way.

Christ prayed in worship and request.

By this, I mean that Christ’s prayers included both types of communication. At times, Christ’s prayers did not consist of asking God for things, but consisted instead in thanking, praising, and reveling in God, thanking God the Father for who he is and for what he does.

As I mentioned previously, Christ praised God the Father before eating food (Matt 14:19):

He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes.

The common prayer in these moments was “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.” Perhaps this is what Christ said, or perhaps he offered a similar prayer in different words. Whatever the case, this was not a prayer of asking God for things but of thanking God for what he had already provided.

If we could measure your prayer life today and visualize it as a pie chart today, what percentage of the chart would represent prayers of praise and what percentage would represent prayers of request? Neither is wrong, but would prayers of praise represent any significant percentage at all?

It’s easy for us to mostly and almost only pray when we need want things from God (again, not a bad reason to pray), but to almost never or very infrequently simply praise God in prayer instead. Perhaps a healthier balance would be a good goal to pursue as you take your next steps in following Christ in prayer.

In many of Christ’s prayers, we do know that he asked God for things. What did he ask for? From what I can tell, all sorts of things: daily food, strength to resist temptation, wisdom to make good choices, the ability to endure hard trials rather than running away – such as at the cross. Yet, one of the things he asked God for in prayer stands out.

Christ prayed for believers and future believers.

Though there are many kinds of requests we make to God, the emphasis of Christ’s requests in the gospels seems to center on one particular kind or category of request, praying for those who either did follow him already or would eventually follow him. For those who would eventually follow him, we see two clear examples. We’ve already mentioned the first one previously, that moment when Christ prayed all night before choosing his twelve, close disciples (Luke 6:12):

It came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God.

Another unlikely example occurred when he prayed for God’s blessing upon young children (Matt 19:13):

Little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them.

In this case, his closest followers felt that he should stop doing this to focus on other more important “adult” priorities, but Christ insisted that this was an important thing for him to do. To pray for these children was to request a blessing from God for these children, asking for God’s favor to rest upon and intervene in their lives in some way, perhaps that God would reveal to them the truth of the gospel that they would believe on Christ alone as their personal God and Savior as soon as possible.

In John 17:20, we see that Christ prayed specifically for those people who had not yet believed on him prior to his crucifixion, but who would eventually believe on him sometime afterward:

I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word…

Do you pray this way? Do you ask God to bring people across your path who are not yet followers of Christ who will become followers of Christ, people to whom you can show the love of Christ and to whom you can explain the good news of salvation from Christ?

Then, finally, we see that Christ prayed especially for those who had believed on him (John 17:9):

I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.

We’ll look more closely at this prayer of Christ and this passage of Scripture in our final sermon in this series, but for now, it is sufficient for me to say that he prayed for two particular requests: (1) that his followers would be faithful witnesses and servants for God throughout the entirety of their lives and (2) that his followers would live and serve in humility and harmony with one another. These are two excellent requests for us to pray for one another as a church!

In one other instance, we see how Christ prayed specifically for one of his disciples, Peter (Luke 22:32):

But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”

From this we see that Christ prayed that Peter’s faith would not entirely eclipse (or black out). He knew that Peter would go through some very difficult trials to his faith, bringing him to the brink of falling away from faith in Christ entirely. But Christ spoke deliberately to God on Peter’s behalf, ensuring that though Peter’s faith would waver it would never black out. He also prayed that on the other side of Peter’s crisis of faith, he would become a valiant and effective servant to the church, serving and strengthening other believers who would face similar trials of faith as well.

Do you pray for one another this way? The life of faith and following Christ is not an easy one. We must lift one another up in prayer that we would each persevere and finish out our lives as fruitful, faithful servants of Christ to his church.

Christ calls us to pray.

So, this is the conclusion of our study and survey today, that just as Christ prayed, so he calls us to pray as well (John 16:26):

In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you.

The “in that day” here refers to that time after Christ’s crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to heaven, when he would no longer be in this world, physically accessible to speak to, to be asked to speak to God on behalf of his followers. That day continues to this day, as he has not yet returned to earth in the flesh. So, at this time, he calls us to speak to God the Father directly, offering to him both our praises and requests.

We do not need to “go through Christ” for our prayers to be heard. In fact, Christ indicates that he does not serve as an intermediary for our prayers. But because of what he has done at the cross, he has opened the way for us to speak directly to God the Father for ourselves.

Some may ask, “But how does this idea mesh with what Rom 8:34 and Heb 7:25 teach about Christ as our intermediary, speaking to God the Father on our behalf? Is this a contradiction?” The answer is ‘no,’ this is not a contradiction. D. A. Carson provides this helpful explanation of this apparent contradiction:

Rightly understood, such passages focus on the mediatorial role of the Son in the plan of redemption, and therefore on the basis of the Christian’s acceptance by God; they do not stipulate a mechanical conveyancing of the Christian’s prayers, as if Jesus’ purpose were to restrict the believer’s access to the Father.

In other words, Rom 8:34 and Heb 7:25 tell us about how Christ intercedes and speaks to God on our behalf in regard to our basic relationship with God, the forgiveness of our sins, our eternal security, our place in God’s family forever, and the privileges that are ours as God’s children. This ongoing ministry of Christ is the basis, foundation, and reason why we can speak to God at all. But when it comes to our actual, personal expressions of praise and request to God, we must offer those prayers ourselves. Christ will not do that for us. He calls us to speak deliberately to God for ourselves. And we must speak deliberately to God for one another, as well, as Christ himself modeled for us in his earthly ministry.

As a church, let me encourage you to take one or two things away from this message and apply them to your life. If you have never believed on Christ as your God and Savior, then I pray that you will become a follower of Christ today. I pray that you will turn from your sins and wrong beliefs to trust entirely in Christ alone as your God and Savior.

If you have believed on Christ and are following him today by faith alone, then I urge you to take your next steps in following Christ by gleaning something from this survey of the priority of prayer in Christ’s life to your life today. How can you better pray like Christ prayed?

Let me also encourage you to take the step of joining a Brookdale Life Group, so you can develop closer relationships with other members and attenders of this church family which will enable you to know some other followers of Christ and be known better by them, so that you can pray more knowledgeably and personally for one another. This would be an answer to the prayers of Christ.