Prayer Discipline

Introduction

Hello everyone! Hello everyone! I wanted to say thank you for allowing me to be here and speak this evening. My hope is that you would find this time encouraging and edifying, and that you would leave knowing something you didn't know when you came here. Or at least that you would be reminded of biblical truth. With this section we're going to talk about the discipline of prayer.

As we begin, I wanted to share a quote from Martin Luther he said this, “As it is the business of tailors to make clothes and of cobblers to mend shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray.” Luther understood the importance of prayer for any Christian. And I know that most of us know this but I think it's important to be reminded of just how important it is to really de-vote ourselves to prayer.  As we live in a busy world today we have the Internet and cell phones and cars and all sorts of things that just mean that we're constantly going going going. We need to remember to stop and pray. Like the quote from Martin Luther says Prayer is a defining act of a Christian.

Prayer is Expected

If you have a Bible turn with me to Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6:5-9

Look at what Jesus says in these verses. Jesus starts verse 5 by saying, “When you pray”. And then in verse 6 again he says “when you pray”. In verse 7 he says it a third time, he says “when you pray," and then in verse 9, he says pray like this. Jesus, when explaining these dos and don'ts of prayer, he points out that it is important and it is expected that we pray. That's why he uses the language when you pray or as you pray. It was because prayer is expected.

In the gospel of Luke, chapter 11, verse 9, Jesus says, And I will tell you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be open to you. And a few chapters later, in chapter 18, Jesus tells a parable about a widow who was persistent in asking for her needs. Jesus connects this to prayer and how we should be persistent in praying.

I bring up all these scripture references because they remind us that prayer is expected and it's something that all Christians must do daily. Paul told the Church of Thessalonica to pray without ceasing. Now obviously this doesn't mean that we are to just not talk to anybody or do anything because we're in constant prayer with the Lord. It's more about our mindset and our heart.

It means that throughout our day, we do pray to the Lord, we may not even stop doing the thing that we're doing, we may continue working or continue driving or whatever we're doing but we stop thinking about other things and we focus on the Lord and pray to him. We acknowledge that he's there, that he's in control of the situation, and that he loves us. we remind ourselves of the grace that he's shown us. The Lord desires a deep, personal, intimate relationship with you. How many of you have relationships with people you don't talk to? It's not likely is that the relationship is going to be healthy. The same thing is true with our faith we must talk to the Lord in order to grow in our relationship with him.

Prayer is Learned

In the book that we were basing these lessons off of the author explained that one of the main reasons that people don't pray is because they feel like they don't know how. Personally this is something I see as I serve in youth ministry a lot. At my home church, I am the youth minister and I get to sit down with a lot of youth and pray with them. But sometimes you see there's a nervous look on their face when you ask them to pray in front of other people. I look at them and I see pure panic in their eyes. Usually they they try to make it more complicated than it has to be they try to use big words or say long, elegant phrases. It's not necessarily how you have to pray. Jesus lays it out for us.

If you turn back to me Matthew 6 you can see Jesus' prayer. Today, we call this the Lord's prayer. It's typically repeated during services or maybe during a wedding or things like that. It's become a model for prayer. As we read this, I don't want you to get caught up in necessarily the words that Jesus uses, and want you to more so focus on the themes and the structure of his prayer. 

Matthew 6:9-13

Just notice how simple this is. Jesus prayer acknowledges who God is, acknowledges whom man is that they're sinful, and it asked the Lord for provision and protection. It acknowledges that God’s will is best. In our prayers we may ask for things but at the end of the day we should want the will of the Lord to be done. Prayer doesn't have to be complicated or confusing. We just follow this model we don't have to use those exact words but this is a good model for a way to pray. In a few minutes at the end of this lesson I'll share with you as well a model based off of this prayer in Matthew that I use often.

One of the main ways that we can learn prayer is from Jesus himself and his word. But there are other ways as well we can learn by praying with others. This includes both us praying and other people praying. You can hear the way that they pray and it can help us to learn to pray even better learn to be more intentional in our prayers. I know that praying out loud with somebody else can be very intimidating that's scary however I want to encourage you guys that it will help you more than you could ever know. It just takes getting out of your comfort zone and being intentional with how you pray with other people.

Another way that we can learn about prayer is by reading about it. There's a ton of prayers recorded in the book of psalms. You see men like David you can read about their story about the things that they were going through and then you can read their prayers. I want to encourage you to do this, there's a lot of wisdom in the way that David and some of these other authors pray.

For the sake of time I can't read both of these accounts but I want to provide them with you so that maybe you could read them later on. I just want you to be able to see an example of how we can learn prayer from books like psalms. If you read second Samuel Chapter 11 you'll read about the account of David and his sin with Bathsheba. Along with this if you read Psalm 51 you can see David's prayer as he repented to the Lord after sinning with Bathsheba. I encourage you to read this on your own time because it can be very helpful with learning how to pray.

Prayer is Answered

The last thing that we see is that prayer is answered. David in Psalm 65 verse 2 says. “O you who hear prayer” David's acknowledging the fact that God hears his prayers. This is exactly what Jesus said in Matthew 7 verses 7 through 8. Again it says seek and you will find ask and you will receive knock and it will be opened for you. Now don't mishear me here I'm not saying that you will get everything that you ask for.

And I'm not saying that when you ask for something you'll get it in the way that you are expecting it. For example we all know when you pray to the Lord for patience, he's not going to just bless you with patience he's going to give you people that really test your patience. That’s when the kids misbehave or a coworker really tests your patience.

The thing that we have to remember is that God sees the bigger picture we only see minor parts of the whole picture. There's been times in my life where I'm thankful to God that he didn't give me what I asked for originally because if he did it wouldn't have worked out. Because of this we must remember that the Lord's will is best. Incorporate that into our prayer but also make your make your request known to the Lord and trust that he hears you and that he will answer you.

We must pray throughout our day uh just before we eat not just when something bad happens we must pray constantly. And you must pray expecting an answer. As we were going through this as a church a few months ago my pastor said that sometimes when we pray it's like a kid begging for candy in a candy store. It's stuck with me because it reminds me of the urgency of prayer and the persistency of prayer. I know that when I was a kid and I wanted candy or something like that I was persistent I begged and I begged until my parents either had to give in or we had to leave the store. That's how we should pray we should be persistent and looking for an answer.

Application

And so as I close this section I want to walk through that's known as the Acts prayer strategy and I want you to write this down.

Adoration

Adoration is simply focusing on who God is and expressing awe and worship. Sometimes this is the hardest thing for us to do, but it is a necessary part of praying, because it focuses us on who God is and gives us the opportunity to make much of him. When we pray, it is essential that we know who we are talking to.

Confession

Confession is our response to the uncovering of who we are and what we have done. When we step into the light of God’s greatness, we recognize how we fall short of his glory. Confession is a great privilege, because it allows us to lay hold of the cleansing and forgiveness offered to us in Jesus. We may walk in filthy, but we can leave cleansed and forgiven.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a humble response to the generosity of God, acknowledging that every good and perfect gift comes from him. In spite of who we are and what we have done, God has been and continues to do us good. Thanksgiving recognizes that all we are and all we have is because of him. Gratitude puts us in the right frame of mind to ask, because it leads us to consider what God has done and what he is able to do.

Supplication

Supplication is just the practice of asking. Jesus told us to ask, but he also modeled for us an asking that was submissive and surrendered. He delights to give and bless. Asking glorifies him. Asking humbles us. Asking opens the door for greater faith and draws us deep into the arms of our good God whose faithfulness and love never end.

At the end of the day, prayer doesn’t have to be complicated. At its core, it’s humans talking to the creator of all things, the LORD. It is a great privilege that we are able to pray to the Father wherever we are. It is a proveldge that was bought with a price. It was bought with the precious blood of the spotless lamb. Let us remember this truth daily as we practice prayer.

1. How often should we pray?

2. Why don’t we pray more?

3. What if God doesn’t answer our prayers? Should we stop praying?

4. When and where can we pray?

5. What should prayer look like in the church?

6. How can someone get better at praying?