How to Pray

Series Intro

I wanted to spend some time going through the Psalms again this fall. But this time I want to focus on prayer. We are told from a young age to pray from the heart. Whn we do not know how to pray just focus on what your heart is trying to say. But what we have been learning is that the heart is sinful, prone to wander. Jeremiah 17:9 “9 The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?” You see the problem is that when we pray from the heart we tend to wander away from what the Lord wants to our own selfish desires. Jesus did not tell us to pray from the heart, but rather to pray in the way that he taught. Rather we are to commit his words to our hearts. So then Our prayer life needs to be shaped by the word of God.

I read in a desiring God article something I wanted to share with you.

If you want your prayer life to be shaped by the word of God — as I hope you do! — you cannot do better than to make the Psalms a central part of your prayers. For in the Psalms we have words that God has given us to speak to God. Such a rich tapestry of praises, laments, meditations, requests, and urgent supplications is given to us that we neglect it at our peril. The Psalms tie our personal prayers to the corporate prayers of the people of Christ in every generation. They warm our hearts, inform our minds, and shape our wills. “The Psalms connect our personal walk with God to the corporate life of the whole church of Christ.” Christian history certainly supports a robust use of the Psalms in our worship. In the first few centuries after Jesus, the Psalms generated more commentaries than any other biblical book. By the fourth century, at the latest, the book of Psalms (the Psalter) was being used regularly for Christians to sing. For Benedictine monks, the Rule of Saint Benedict (c. 530) stipulated that all 150 Psalms should be sung each week! We have come a long way from this focus on the Psalms. Now, in many Christian churches, the Psalms get no more than the occasional sermon and some songs loosely inspired by psalms. Does this matter? I think it does. I want to encourage you to make the Psalms a rich and major part of your life of prayer and praise, both privately and corporately in your churches. I want to persuade you that this is right and good. And I want to give some pointers to help you know how to do this.

Jesus quoted and prayed the Psalms and other scriptures, we are told in the bible to speak to each other in Psalms, Hymns and spiritual songs. The Psalms are there for us to sing, to pray through, they contain the breadth of human emotion and experience. The scriptures put our heart in the right place, put our focus back on ourselves. Even the disciples who where under the direct teaching of the messiah asked Jesus how to pray properly. For the next few weeks we will be going through some Psalms, learn what they mean, How they should change our lives and learn how to commit them to our hearts by using them in our prayer lives.

HBI - We all need to be taught how to pray to focus on God and not ourselves. We need to look to Jesus and how he taught us to pray.

Our Heavenly Father

We need to be taught to pray. From a young age, kids that grow up in Christian homes don't really know how. Even lots of adults struggle with this. You see what the bible teaches is that we do not instinctively know how to pray. So we look to the pattern that was given to us in the Lord's prayer.

If you look in the Lord’s prayer, it;’s pattern goes back to the Psalms. The Psalms expand on and echo the theme of the Lord’s prayer. The early church echoed this and so should we. Eph 5:19

Ephesians 5:19 CSB

19 speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord,

so before we get into the Psalms we are going to go through How Jesus taught us to pray, then we will start looking into how we can apply this to the Psalms themselves. There are two places that the Lords Prayer is recorded, we will start out in the book of Luke.

Luke 11:1 CSB

1 He was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.”

Jesus disciples would watch Jesus and follow His example. and they asked Him to teach them how to pray, so He gave us a template. Not just these words to pray but also pray in this way.

What we see here is the habit of Jesus in praying and finding a place to pray and the importance of it that he gave to His disciples. The prayer begins with a focus on the adoration of God, His honor kingdom and purpose and then when we focus on that at the end do we begin to bring our needs into the picture. It is a good starting point for us to look into how to pray.

Matthew 6:9 CSB

9 “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy.

It is not by accident that the first half of the prayer Jesus gave us is concerned with God and His glory. It is only after this, when the priorities are set on God, His will and His glory that our own petitions come into play. We start out by remembering who we are praying to. Our Father in Heaven.

God is the all powerful, all mighty one. He is to be completely trusted and yet on the other hand we can approach Him as a father but with reverence. Jesus addressed God as His father and he encouraged us to do the same. Though I think we may have lost a bit the teaching of the transcendence of God.

Let your name be honored as Holy.

The next three things we are told are a way, an act of worship that associates us with God’s purpose in the world. You see we first need to focus On Who God is and what He has done for us.

We memorize this as “Hallowed by your name” and I don't think we really know what that even mean. The Greek words here mean to make God’s name sanctified and kept Holy. It is not that God is not already Holy, but rather we are to remember to Honor God’s name as Holy. We are to give God the reverence that He is due. We are required to approach God as a holy God, set apart and transcendent. The Psalms remind of this as well.

May Your Kingdom come

Matthew 6:10 CSB

10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The same is true with this one, it is not that we are asking that this become true as if it is not already but rather a plea that we would submit to God in this way. Asking that this would be our mindset, our Goal in this life.

We live in a bit of a tension. You see John the baptist taught that the Kingdom of God was at hand. That it was to be ushered in by the messiah. The K of G was ushered in when Jesus came, yet sometimes we miss it. You see we are a part of the K of G. It is our responsibility as followers of Jesus to be emissaries of the K of G. But there is a not quite yet part of this as well. Though it has been ushered in now, God’s Kingdom will not come to it’s full realization till Jesus comes back again. There is a futrue more public demonstration coming.

This is what we pray we will live for, This is what we pray we will strive to see happen, this is what we pray that we will long to see, is other people become a part of it.

Your will be done

When we strive and ask to see the kingdom of God here on earth we are also asking that we see God obeyed and his purpose fulfilled. You see all that needs to happen before we get to the point of asking for our own needs and desires. We need to make sure that we are lining ourselves up with the will of God and His Kingdom and rule.

This si something that Matthew said elsewhere as well. Matthew 7:21

Matthew 7:21 CSB

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Only the one who does the will of the father in Heaven will enter the kingdom of God. To be a disciple of Jesus means that we will be striving to fulfill the will of God. This needs to be in our prayer life as well. Read the Psalms. It is filled with times when the Psalmist doesn't understand what is happening and why it is happening. But it always ends with the author saying something along the lines of “nevertheless your will be done” Not my will but the will of my father in heaven.

In Heaven and on earth

Matthew 6:10 CSB

10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

This can apply to all of these phrases that we have gone through so far. We read in the book of revelation that the angels and people in heaven worship the Lord God perfectly like we are supposed to. His kingship is acknowledged his will is done and our desire is to see that done on earth as well and wait in expectation for that to happen.

Our own needs

I have seen people treat God like some sort of spiritual vending machine or Genie. Like we rub the amp and poof all our wants will be met. As if we can adore God enough and he will give us what we ask for. Sometimes I wish this where the case. That I could get God to do my every bidding. But I have learned that what I want is not always good for me. That is why Jesus taught his disciples to first focus on praying with this mindset. Focusing ourselves on whop God is and how we are to respond to and live for Him. Then we will be in the right frame of mind to ask for our own needs.

Matthew 6:11 CSB

11 Give us today our daily bread.

this is not literal bread, so don't worry all you gluten free people. but the idea behind this is our daily needs.

Think back to the exodus when God was providing for the Israelite's in the desert. He provided daily manna for them and in doing that they needed to trust for God to provide daily. They where not allowed to gather more then what they needed for that day, they had to trust the next day as well.

As we have focused on God and asked to line ourselves up with His will we ask for God to provide for what he knows we need daily. We arent asking for what we think we need but for God to provide for what we need day by day.

Matthew 6:12 CSB

12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

We have a petition for forgiveness for the sins that we have committed. We have all sinned, we all need the forgiveness of the Lord God. We are told we must bring our sins to the Lord.

Forgiveness goes both ways. We ask God for forgiveness and then we also forgive others as we ask them to forgive us. It needs to go both ways. If we refuse to forgive others then our heavenly father says that He wont forgive us.

One thing we need to remember is that undelt with sin, unforgiveness is an obstacle to prayer. If we are hiding these sins in our heart then God says He wont forgive us. So then we must come to God and ask what it is in our lives thsat need forgiveness, who do we need to go to in forgiveness.

Matthew 6:13 CSB

13 And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

We go from protection from past sin to protection from future sin. In the devils desire to lead astray we need to be aware of our need for God to give us the strength to withstand.

This is not saying that the Lord tempts us to sin, this is not the case as is clear in the bible. But the word here used can also mean testing to prove your faith. The Lord does test our faith, it is not always fun but sometimes is necessary. But aware of our weakness, we prefer not t be tested and when we are tempted we ask that the Lord will give us the strength to withstand.

So What?

The reason why we go through this is because we need a model of prayer or we start going into the aladdin model of prayer where God is our genie and we are the master. Or maybe it is we just do not know how to pray or what to pray for. So as we teach people to pray, as we learn to pray through scripture this is the model that we are going to see.

God Alone

As we pray we need to come at it with the reminder that God is God and we are not. We need to praise Him for who He is and what He is done. We need to remember that it is a Holy God that we are approaching yet He invites us to call Him father. Start by remembering who it is we are approaching in prayer. Seek to follow the will of the Lord God in all things. God alone is in control and we can trust in Him. He alone si all powerful and we must follow Him. This needs to guide our prayers.

God knows our needs

As we do this we can then be in the right frame of mind to ask not for what we think we need but for what God knows we need. Not that we can never ask god for what we want, but remember the goal f our prayers needs to line ourselves up with the will of God, then to ask for His Kingdom to come through us on this earth ,.And in the mean time prayer that He will provide for us.

Come to the Lord in prayer lining yourselves up with His will for your life. Forgive others as God has forgiven you. This is the model of prayer we have been given. It may seem a bit repetitive at times but that is okay.

Are you following God, are you tursting Him as the Lord of all? Let us spend time every day in prayer like this and see how the Lord starts working through us.