5 Principles of Prayer
Notes
Transcript
There are sometimes I read the word and I have to tangle myself down, because there are things that we have learned over the years or there are ways we have heard scripture preached and we may have an inaccurate view of what it is saying. And wouldn’t you know that today’s scripture has a lot of different opinions on what people think it means and how they think it should go and we can dive into that a little bit this morning. Before we jump directly into the scripture we have to backup and remember where we came from so we can have an idea of what is going on when this is all being said… remember in chapter 13 Jesus has told them he is leaving and going to a place they cannot go and then he has told them Peter will deny him… and there has to be a little bit of confusion in the air and at the beginning of this chapter there lies some words that I think Jesus uses as the background for what we are talking about today… in the face of the adversity and the tough words he had just told them he says in verse 1 Jn 14:1
1 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
And he is about to tell us some stuff because he doesn’t want our hearts to be troubled… he is giving us some stuff that is supposed to unburden us from the pain they were feeling on that day. And really it was for us today as we feel burdened by some of the things in this world he would tell us the exact same thing. Do not let your hearts be troubled…
And this next bit of scripture this morning is a bit difficult…
12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.
because if you are a cessationist you have to deal with the fact that Jesus said there are greater things you can do, and when you read this story you think that he was speaking directly to the disciples and all of that ended with them… but also, you would have a terrible time trying to decide what he meant by greater than these because you cant see anything they did greater than what Jesus did, and that may be a bad interpretation of what greater means…
And then there is the other side who reads this and they believe, like I do, that the gifts are still alive and active and we can live those out but some take it the exact opposite extreme and believe this means you can name it and claim it if you just set your mind to it and believe in him that you can get anything your little heart desires.
But what if I told you this morning that as I read this scripture what I really see here is Jesus giving us some principle for prayer.
Most of us are familiar with the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:9-13
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.
Which gives us a way in which we should pray… but is absent from the Gospel of John. Here however. Jesus is going to teach us some things about prayer, because there are some things he wants to learn and know about prayer, because remember up until this point they haven’t needed to pray to Jesus because he was with them, but he is about to leave them as they well know and he is giving them some principles they will need to use once he is gone… Some ideas that will help us to keep our hearts from being troubled when he is not physically with us.
EXPOSITION
EXPOSITION
The first is this
1. Prayer is a profession
Look at Jn 14:13-14
13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
And it is clear that Jesus wants us to ask. He wants us to declare and profess what it is we think we need and bring it before him.
We are dealing with an entire generation where people want things, but they won’t ask for it. It isn’t always entitlement as I think we like to push off on this generation, though in some in clearly may be, but we need to realize we have a generation of people who they think when you see their need you should just come to fix it.
I remember once a man who came to church with his mom asked to meet with me and we met and he never asked me for the churches help so I didn’t offer anything. He just came and talked about the hard times he was having so we prayed together and asked God to move in his heart and life… and he told his mom we wouldn’t help him… and I let her know he never asked and she couldn’t believe it, so he finally did come and ask and we were able to help he and his family a little bit. Here in my mind what I see is Jesus saying it is important for us to declare and speak clearly what we need.
He says whatever we ask in his Name… so it is so clear we must ask… could Jesus give us whatever we need? OF COURSE he could.. but it is clear he wants us to verbalize what it is we need from him. And clearly this was the message that James received when he was sitting there with Jesus because look at what he says in James 4:2
James 4:2 (ESV)
2 .… You do not have, because you do not ask.
And so it is important for us to verbalize our needs to him. He wants us to talk and communicate with him. And later he will even model this type of prayer for us in Jn 17:9
9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.
And Jesus will go on and tell them 5 more times as they sit in the upper rom they need to ask for what they need…
And we know those of us who call ourselves Christians are the only ones who have the ability to go to God and ask him things in prayer… the first cry Jesus hears from us is the one where he pray and ask him to save us from our sins to set our relationship with him.
So when you go to God are you professing your needs, even though he knows them? Are you being specific in what you want from him and asking him to give it to you. You think he already knows and that is true but he wants you to declare it this morning.
I think the second principle he gives us this morning is this:
2. Prayer is for the purpose of Gods Glory.
I think the thing we keep forgetting when we think about God is that he does things for his own glory. And this doesn’t stop when it comes to our own prayers. He even wants to glorify himself by answering our prayers…
Look at what God says about himself in Isa 48:9-11
Isaiah 48:9–11 (ESV)
9 “For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off.
10 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.
11 For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.
So it is clear, even in answering our prayers God wants to glorify himself through it. Which is why so often when we think God isn’t answering our prayers… far too often I think we are praying about the things that we want and what would glorify us and our own lives.
Now, I know what you’re saying, its not just glorifying your life you want it to glorify him as well… and I agree because when I pray for God to give me the lottery numbers that I don’t play I always tell him I will glorify him with the winnings, because I will definitely tithe off of everything that I win and make sure God gets the glory from that. Right? No?
And so we see and should know that the purpose of prayer is to Glorify God.
And so we shouldn’t let our hearts be troubled, instead we should pray that God would be glorified in all that he would do, because we know that in everything he does Jesus wants to glorify the father.
So first we realize Prayer is a profession, and then prayer is for God’s glory, and thirdly
3. Prayer has a promise by Jesus to glorify god. ( I think this one is more about our will aligning with Jesus will to be done)
Look back at these first two verses
13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
What we see is when our prayers align with who he is, and the reason why he came, and his purpose for coming, he will do whatever we ask. This is the point we have slowly made throughout the others this morning. We have to align our will with his for our prayers to really get to the place we need them to be.
We cannot just pray for our own will it is important to know we are in accordance to his will and we must pursue what he wanted to do
But often we pray and only want what we want with very little thought to what God wants… and what we need to do is be more like Jesus when he was in the garden.. burdened by what was coming for him and he said…
Matthew 26:39
39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
And its okay to seek him and ask him for what we want, but we should always know that we should like Jesus be praying for what HE wants and wills for our lives.
The hard part about us praying for what he wants and wills for our lives is we need to know what he wants and wills for our lives. We must be talking to him in more than the times when we want something from Him. We must be willing to talk to him in the times where we are not feeling overwhelmed and burdened. We must be reading his word and conversing with Him daily to know exactly what he wants.
Fourthly this morning,
4. We pray through Jesus
Back to the scripture
13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
We see that our prayers are through His name. And this goes back to the idea that there is never a prayer heard from us until we cry out in our sins and ask for him to save us. It is through Jesus that we even have access to the Father he has told us, so it makes sense for us to realize also that while his name is not a magic formula, it is what gave us access to the father in the first place, and he and the Father are one so through his name is who we should pray.
And as we pray we ask for these things in Jesus name because he is the one that did the work that made us right with the Father.
So we don’t let our heart be troubled, instead we ask in prayer with the purpose of God’s glory, through Jesus, knowing he will keep his promise to glorify God.
Lastly,
5. Prayers are answered through love and obedience
Look at Jn 14:15
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
It seems the last step in working through our principles of prayer this morning is realizing that love and obedience is the pathway to which prayers are answered. And what we see is that right praying requires right living… we cannot truly pray for what God wants in our lives if we aren’t living a life that he has called us to. We need to make sure we are already living according to his plan to make sure we can get what we need for the life we have been called to.
YOU
YOU
The question this morning is God big enough in you to bring glory to himself? Does God have enough priority in you heart that you are able to say. “Not my will but yours be done,” or are you so caught up in your own life and what you have going on that you cannot even begin to pray that way. Is your prayer much like Jesus for the things that will help lead others to salvation through God’s glory…
WE
WE
Could you imagine a world where our prayers were not for our own desires, but for his purposes to be achieved in the world around us, that he would line our lives up in such a way that he would give us the things that would glorify him and ultimately reach a lost and dying world. Because remember as we have talked about again and again, as God is glorified, as his glory is put on display, people begin to know him. Don’t you want to be a part of that this morning?
