The Practice of Prayer

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

I want to begin this morning by asking you some questions about your prayer life. Before I do that, I want to assure you that I’m not trying to embarrass anyone or make you feel guilty. I just want to help all of us focus our thoughts on the topic we’ll be covering today. Feel free to jot down your answers or just answer the questions silently. I don’t need a show of hands.

How many of you are 100% satisfied with your prayer life? If you answered “yes” to that question, congratulations. You are excused right now since you really don’t need to listen to this message.

For the rest of us, I’d like you to think about why you’re not 100% satisfied with your prayer life. Is it because you don’t know how to pray? Is it because you just don’t pray as often and as consistently as you’d like? Or is something else lacking?

Tension

In many ways this is the most difficult message I have preached in a long time. The topic of prayer is so big that I can’t possibly even scratch the surface this morning. So, quite fittingly I suppose, I’ve prayed a lot about what God would have me to share with you in the 30 minutes or so I have this morning.

So let me give you a brief road map of where I’m planning to take us:

First, I want to place prayer within its proper context of this entire sermon series.

Second, we’re going to develop a working definition of prayer.

Third, we’re going to take a whirlwind trip through the prayer life of Jesus.

Fourth, we’ll take a brief look at Jesus’ teaching on prayer

Finally, we’ll put all that together and wrap up with what will hopefully be some practical suggestions on how to take your prayer life to the next level no matter where you’re at right now.

The one thing I’m trying really hard to do this morning is to not lay some kind of guilt trip on you. I think most of us probably already feel like our prayer life isn’t all it should be. And just piling on to those feelings really wouldn’t be productive at all. So I’m going to keep this positive and practical and trust that the Holy Spirit is capable of convicting us about our prayer life when that is needed.

Truth

This is the second message in our current sermon series, Transformed. We set the stage for this series last week by talking about the idea that every Christian is a disciple, or an apprentice, of Jesus. As disciples, our goal is to adopt the lifestyle of our master, Jesus. We do that cooperating with the Holy Spirit as He renovates our hearts, which then leads to a change in behavior. Or, as we sang earlier this morning, we are transformed from the inside out.

Although the work of transformation is God’s alone, we do need to bring something to the table and give Him something to work with. That is where the seven practices of Jesus that we’re learning about in this series come in. Each of them is a practice that Jesus engaged in while here on earth in order to be empowered by the Holy Spirit for His ministry. And the Holy Spirit uses those same practices, or spiritual disciplines, in our lives in the process of transformation.

Although we’re covering each of these seven practices individually, they don’t operate in isolation and there is going to be a lot of overlap. We saw that last week in Luke 4, where we saw that Jesus engaged in solitude, prayer, fasting and the scriptures during His 40 days in the wilderness.

With that context in mind, let’s begin our dive into the practice of prayer with a definition of prayer that will also serve as our main idea:

Prayer is the intentional, conversational engagement of my heart and soul with the heart and soul of God.

Let’s take a couple moments to talk about the crucial parts of that definition:

First, prayer, like we saw with solitude last week, needs to be intentional. While there is certainly a place for spontaneous prayers throughout our day, if we really want for our lives to be transformed we need to build intentional times of prayer into the rhythms of our lives.

Second prayer is conversational. That idea has at least two important implications. First it means we just talk to God like we were talking to a friend. Obviously there is a need for reverence, but we don’t need to use big, fancy theological terms or speak in King James English. Second it means that we need to listen at least as much as we talk. We’ll talk about this more in a future message but since the primary way God speaks to us is through His Word, we should incorporate Scripture into our prayer times.

Finally prayer is an engagement with my heart and soul with God’s heart and soul. That means that the primary purpose of prayer is not to get something from God but rather to better know God and understand His will for my life and this world.

With that definition in mind, let’s move on to Jesus’ prayer life.

Jesus’ Prayer Life

Since this series is all about incorporating the practices of Jesus, it seems like we ought to spend some time thinking about how Jesus prayed. I want to begin by getting some of your ideas about how Jesus prayed. What do you think are some of the most important aspects of His prayer life?

[Wait for answers]

Before I summarize all of these observations, let me take you on a quick trip through just some of the times Jesus prayed here on earth:

As we saw last week, He prayed as He spent 40 days alone in the wilderness to prepare for His earthly ministry.

He prayed at His baptism.

He prayed before and after feeding the multitudes on two different occasions.

He spent all night praying before selecting the 12 apostles.

He prayed at Lazarus’ tomb.

Just before going to the cross, He prayed for His disciples.

In the Garden, He prayed to His Father about His imminent death on the cross.

Even in His agony on the cross, Jesus prayed.

I think we could make these conclusions about Jesus’ prayer life:

He prayed often

He prayed publicly and privately

He prayed for guidance

He prayed in trials and tribulation

Let’s look next at:

Jesus’ teaching on prayer

Jesus’ primary teaching on prayer is found in the Sermon on the Mount and in a parallel passage in Luke 11.

Matthew 6:5–15 ESV

5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

I want to make a few observations about this passage and then we’ll tie together everything we’ve been talking about so far and develop some practical principles to help us pray like Jesus prayed and commanded us to pray.

Jesus expects me to pray

…when you pray… (vs, 5,6,7)

I could give you a lot of other verses that support that idea, but I don’t think that’s really necessary is it?

Prayer is not for show

If we’re not careful, we could very easily develop some inaccurate ideas about prayer from verses 5-7. For instance, when Jesus instructs His disciples to pray in secret in verse 6, He is not in any way saying that there is not a place for public prayer. Jesus often prayed in public so we know He can’t mean that. Taken together those three verses remind us that we are never to pray to impress others. When we do pray in public we don’t need to use fancy words or pray long prayers. Remember our definition of prayer earlier:

Prayer is the intentional, conversational engagement of my heart and soul with the heart and soul of God.

When we pray, God is the only audience that matters. And that is true even when we pray with others.

The correct focus in prayer is God > others > me

Verses 9-15 are commonly known as the “Lord’s Prayer”. But I think it’s much more accurate to refer to this as a “model prayer”. It’s clear from the context that Jesus never intended for these words to be used as they often are today when they are merely recited word for word in a worship service or some other religious gathering. While I don’t think that is necessarily wrong or sacrilegious, it’s pretty clear that is certainly not how Jesus intended this prayer to be used. That’s why He says “…pray like this...”

But there is no doubt that there is a certain structure to the prayer that we can use to guide us as we pray. Jesus begins with a focus on God and His greatness. And then He prays for God’s purposes to be carried out here on earth just as they are in heaven.

The second half of the prayer moves on to personal needs. But I want to call your attention to the pronouns in this prayer. Does anyone notice anything unexpected about those pronouns?

[Wait for answers]

That’s right - they are all plural - our, we, us. You don’f find one my, me or I. That is no accident. I’m convinced Jesus did that because He wanted us to focus on the needs of others in the body before we start focusing on our own.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid that we often get this order completely backwards. We start our prayers by asking God to give us something personally and only after that do we pray for others. And sometimes we don’t even get to who God is or what He wants.

Application

Let’s pull together everything we’ve learned so far and make this practical.

HOW TO PRAY LIKE JESUS PRAYED

Be intentional

It is certainly appropriate to pray spontaneously. I’m going to talk more about that in a moment. But it’s also important to have some structure to our prayer life. We’ve already seen that Jesus regularly incorporated prayer into His life and if He need to do that, just think how much more we need to do so.

Just as we saw last week with solitude, this is going to look a little different for each of us. When and where and how long we pray is dependent on a lot of factors, including our season of life. The prayer time for a mom with young kids at home is going to be a lot different than for those of us who are retired or semi-retired. The key is to make a plan and stick to it. Find a place that is free from distractions and select a time to pray each day and put it on your calendar.

There are a lot of tools that can help us in that process. Some people like to keep a prayer journal. I like to use an app for my smartphone called Prayer Mate. It is especially helpful in reminding me to pray for the needs of others on a regular basis. If you’d like some help in being more intentional about your prayer life, I’d love to help in any way I can.

Keep it simple

Jesus’ model prayer is remarkably simple, especially compared to the lofty prayers of some of the religious leaders of His day.

Although we do need to approach God with reverence, remember that prayer is a conversation with God. So just talk to Him like you’d talk to a friend. You don’t need to use fancy words or pray long, complicated prayers.

Listen as much (or more) than I talk

This is really hard for some of us. We’re not great listeners when it comes to our conversations with other people and that can carry over into our prayer life, where it’s even harder to listen to someone we can’t see or hear audibly. That’s why some of the best prayer times occur while we’re also practicing solitude where we’re free from noise and distractions.

Since prayer is to be a time when I engage my heart and soul with that of God, I need to listen for Him to speak.

I love what Richard Foster writes about this in his book, Celebration of Discipline

In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God’s thoughts after him: to desire the things he desires, to love the things he loves, to will the things he wills. Progressively, we are taught to see things from his point of view.

Prayer is not about getting something from myself. It’s not about changing God’s mind. It’s primarily about changing me so that my heart is aligned with God’s. And the only way that happens is if I listen to God. Obviously the primary way God talks to me is through His Word. That means we need to incorporate the Bible into our prayer life. There are several ways to do that. I can pray God’s Word back to Him as a prayer. I can pray before I read the Bible and ask God to reveal Himself and reveal anything He wants me to do as a result of reading His Word.

We also just need to be quiet some times and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to our human spirits deep inside.

Think God > others > me

We already covered this earlier. There are a lot of different models of prayer out there that are quite useful. But I think this simple outline is both easy to use and it helps us pray more like Jesus commanded us to pray.

When I start by focusing on God’s greatness and asking for His purposes, plans and ways to be carried out here on earth, it completely changes my focus and prevents me from becoming too self-centered. Praying for others reinforces a proper mindset. When I start praying like that, I often find that by the time I get to the “me” part of my prayer I tend to focus on praying the things God wants for me and not the things I want.

Develop a mindset of prayerfulness

This is what Paul had in mind when he wrote these familiar words:

1 Thessalonians 5:17 ESV

17 pray without ceasing,

Paul is obviously not saying that we should go around with our heads bowed and our eyes closed all the time. Just think about that, we’d be running into things all the time! By the way, there is no set position for prayer in the Bible. People prayed standing up, kneeling, lifting up their hands, beating their breast, with their eyes open and with them closed. God is a lot more concerned with the position of our hearts than our physical position.

And that is what Paul is focusing on here. The idea is that as we go throughout our day we should constantly be in communication with God. Sometimes that might be for an extended time in a quiet place where we’re alone with God. Other times, it might be a quick, silent prayer as we ask God for the right words to say or action to take. But the idea is that we’re constantly keeping in mind how great God is, how He might want us to be involved in the lives of others and how we can help His kingdom advance here on earth in our day-to-day lives.

Action

We’ve learned today that...

Prayer is the intentional, conversational engagement of my heart and soul with the heart and soul of God.

I’ve intentionally kept this message shorter than usual so that we’ll have some time to put into practice what we’ve learned today and actually pray. So we’re going to take the next several minutes to pray both corporately and individually.

If you’re able, would you stand with me and pray through part of Psalm 148 together. Let’s make sure we read this slowly so we can concentrate on the words:

Psalm 148:1–2 ESV

1 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights! 2 Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts!

Psalm 148:11–14 ESV

11 Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! 12 Young men and maidens together, old men and children! 13 Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his majesty is above earth and heaven. 14 He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his saints, for the people of Israel who are near to him. Praise the Lord!

Now let’s spend some time praying for each other. For this part of our prayer time, please take out your Bibles and turn to John 17. This is Jesus’ prayer for His disciples just before He went to the cross. Begin in verse 9 and slowly read through Jesus’ prayer. As you come to something in that prayer that you sense God wants you to pray - either for someone else here in this gathering this morning or for the congregation as a whole, just stop there and pray. Don’t rush it and don’t feel like you even have to make it through the entire prayer. Feel free to save the rest for another time.

Now that we’ve prayed to and about God and prayed for others, we’ll finish by praying for ourselves. Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Psalm 119 and pray through verses 33-40. Take as much time as you want to do that and then you may quietly leave the auditorium as others finish praying.

Psalm 119:33–40 ESV

33 Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end. 34 Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. 35 Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. 36 Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! 37 Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. 38 Confirm to your servant your promise, that you may be feared. 39 Turn away the reproach that I dread, for your rules are good. 40 Behold, I long for your precepts; in your righteousness give me life!