Teach Us to Pray (Part 2): Praise Him!
Teach Us to Pray • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 4 viewsAs Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He began with making sure they recognize that God is near and personal, but He is also holy! When we pray, not only should we pray with purpose, but part of that purpose is to recognize the holiness and awe of God. One way we pray with purpose is to intentionally recognize how great God is by praising Him! This message looks at just some of the ways we can express praise to our Father who is in heaven.
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
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 the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen
1 Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation. 2 Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. 3 Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever. 4 He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and merciful. 5 He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever. 6 He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the inheritance of the nations. 7 The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy; 8 they are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness. 9 He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name! 10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!
1) Praise Him for Who He Is!
1) Praise Him for Who He Is!
He is All-Perfect
He is HOLY, HOLY, HOLY!
All of who He is and what He does is perfect.
All of His ways are perfect.
All of His thoughts are perfect.
All of His will is perfect.
He is all-perfect and deserves all praise!
He is All- Powerful
Matthew 19:26 “But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.””
“God is all-powerful and able to do whatever He wills. Since His will is limited by His nature, God can do everything that is in harmony with His perfections.” -Henry Thiessen.
God can do all things that do not contradict His perfection or holiness!
We never have to worry about God having good intentions but not being able to follow through.
He is all-powerful and deserves all praise!
He is All-Perceptive
Psalm 139:1–6 “1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me! 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. 3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”
There is nothing outside of God’s awareness!
He knows all things in fact, deed, or concept. God has perfect perspective of all things.
He has perfect awareness of all that is happening in your life in a way that is beyond even your own understanding.
Only He fully knows and so you can trust Him fully!
God is all-perceptive and deserves all-praise!
He is All-Present
Psalm 139:7–16 “7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” 12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. 13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”
God is fully present even if you don’t feel Him…He’s there!
He is with us in our brightest moments, and He is with us in our darkness moments.
He is with us in our most exciting times, and He is with us in the most average of times.
No matter the place…no matter the circumstances…God is there.
There is no place outside of His watchful eye and life-giving presence!
God is all-present and deserves all-praise!
These things are all a part of His nature and who He is. He cannot and will not exist outside of these characteristics. He is never changing and therefore you and I should never cease to praise Him for who He is! In fact, He is so worthy of praise and adoration that if we were to cease to praise God, the rocks would cry out in praise because He is worthy of all-praise! (Luke 19:40)
2) Praise Him for What He Does!
2) Praise Him for What He Does!
He Supplies All Our Needs
Matthew 6:25–33 “25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
God sees our greatest needs and graciously provides for them.
The general providence of God is an expression of His character by which He provides for all of His creation what they need to survive.
The specific providence of God is an expression of His character by which He provides for us what we need to thrive.
As a result, I can trust God and stop aimlessly running after empty things so that I focus my life on what really matters: seeking after His kingdom and His righteousness.
With gratitude and thankfulness we praise God for how He supplies for all of our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs!
He Saves Us From Sin
Ephesians 2:1–7 “1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Because of who God is, He provides for us what need to thrive…and what we need to thrive is Him!
In our selfishness and pride, we have each turned from God and to our own inclinations of what we want to be right, but truth and righteousness are in God alone!
Because or our sin, we separated ourselves from God and from real life so that we are dead in our sin…But God being rich in mercy and great love extends His grace to us through Jesus!
He does for us what we cannot do for ourselves…He redeems us through His perfection and brings us from death to life!
God doesn’t have to save us…He chooses to save us. He does not owe us anything, but out of His goodness and grace He extends to us mercy we do not deserve through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus!
With gratitude and thankfulness we should endlessly praise God for His endless mercy and kindness in saving us through Jesus.
He Sustains Us in His Love
2 Timothy 1:8–12 “8 …do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, 9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, 10 and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, 11 for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, 12 which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.”
Not only does God save us through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, but He sustains that salvation through His divine power over death!
Salvation in Jesus is solid and sure.
If we are truly Jesus-followers, then we are secure in our salvation!
As we abide in Him, we never have to worry about if our salvation will be lost…He is able to sustain and deliver us fully and securely in His glory!
Jesus saves you…you don’t save you. If it is Jesus who saves, then it is Jesus who sustains.
Alone, you have no power over sin, but in Jesus you are not alone…you are His and sin has no power over Him.
The reason we still wrestle with sin is not because it has a hold on us, but because we are still holding on to it.
The more we cling to Jesus, the less we will cling to sin and the less power it has in our lives.
Temptation will still be there, but more we draw near to God the more we resist the evil one and he will have to flee from us. (James 4:7 “7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” )
We are able to resist the devil, but Jesus’ sustaining power is solid and sure.
With gratitude and thanksgiving we praise God for how He sustains us in His love and draws us near to Him through His Spirit.
CLOSING
CLOSING
As we learn to pray with purpose, let us start by purposefully praising Him and intentionally setting our minds upon who God is and what God does!
VIDEO: “That’s My King!”
Is He Your King?
Let us not treat the God of the universe haphazardly, but let us draw near to Him!
As you pray to the Lord, are taking the necessary time and effort to pray with purpose?
Are you spending adequate time reflecting on Who God is and what God does?
As we pray, let us be sure to spend time thinking about what it truly means to pray, “Our Father who is heaven, hallowed be Your name…”
I wonder… “DO YOU KNOW HIM TODAY?”
