Sermon Tone Analysis

Meeting with God through Prayer

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Quick Recap of where we’ve been

In Week 1, we considered two assumptions:

First, that it’s possible to meet with God; and

Second, that meeting with God is something that we should do, even on a daily basis.

In Weeks 2 and 3, we considered how we meet with God through Biblical intake: that is, hearing, reading, studying, memorizing and meditating on the Word of God.

We also considered the importance of quiet time in meeting with God.

And it’s so important that we’ve reprinted its definition on this week’s outline.

Introduction

As we turn to prayer, I wonder whether you’ve ever met anyone famous?

Living in Washington, DC gives many of us opportunities to see famous politicians even walking around the Hill.

Some of us even work for some of these famous politicians.

I like following politics.

I find both Democrats and Republicans intriguing.

But it’s not just because they’re famous; it’s because they’re also powerful.

They can get things done.

If I could only get a few moments of their time to share with them some of my ideas.

Graeme Goldsworthy, an Anglican from Australia who is renown for his OT teaching, wrote: “It is implicit in our nature to want to speak to someone more powerful than we are.”

This is not necessarily scriptural, but it’s an observation about the human condition that resonates in most of our hearts.

I would suggest that it’s one of the reasons we go to the Lord in prayer.

He is the almighty God, the one who created the universe from nothing.

He is far above us and worthy for us to talk with him, simply because who he is.

But how do we talk to him?

How do we have access to him?

This morning’s class is on prayer; what it is, why we should pray and how we should do it.

Let’s open up this time, appropriately, by going to God and asking Him to give us understanding this morning.

Prayer

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never much cared for worldly “self-improvement” books.

They’re usually man-centered and tend to leave the reader thinking that if I do this particular thing in this particular way then I’ll feel better about myself or be a better person or be successful.

That is exactly the way we do not want to think about our quiet times.

Meeting with God is not formulaic, at least in the sense that if you do it for a certain amount of time or read a certain passage you will be guaranteed good communication with the Lord.

With that in mind, let us turn to some foundational things about prayer that hopefully will help us know the Lord better; in turn, knowing the Lord better hopefully will drive us to Him in prayer.

This is what we’ve been considering the first three weeks in this class: in knowing a great God, we should be drawn deeper into communing with Him.

Consider this definition of prayer: “Prayer is the Spirit-given, Word-saturated response, through communication, to dwelling on God.”

By “response” we mean the outflow of the meditations we’ve taken from the Word.

God has already spoken to us through His Word and so we speak to him in response to that.

Perhaps a more simple definition is the one offered by Wayne Gruden in his book, Systematic Theology: prayer is personnel communication with God.

We put the word “communication” in the definition to accentuate that prayer is our means of communicating with God.

It is speaking to God.

What might this response to God look like in words?

Well, consider the acronym ACTS.

It’s one of the best ways I’ve seen to understand and remember how we should respond.

A – Adoration

C – Confession

T – Thanksgiving

S – Supplication (petitioning or asking the Lord for things to give him glory)

The Davidic Psalms are loaded with prayers of Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.

Perhaps no one other than Jesus Christ himself could pray like David.

And perhaps no one other than our Lord knew God better or loved God more.

Let’s turn to .

This is one of the great prayers of confession in the Bible.

David had just committed a series of heinous sins.

So overcome by sin, he at first was reluctant to repent.

When repentance came, however, David, in vs 1, cried out to God to: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.”

Notice how David weaves into his prayers his knowledge of God’s promises and attributes.

And note how he confidently approaches God and trusts in the promise of redemption in vs. 10: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

We should all strive to be more Christ like -- we must never forget that He is our perfect example.

QUESTIONS

QUESTION: Can anyone tell me a difference between the prayer of praise and the prayer of thanksgiving that we hear on Sunday mornings?

Prayer: a Trinitarian framework (Goldsworthy)

The first important thing to take away from the class today is that the God of the Bible -- our God -- is one God in three persons and that this fact has massive implications for praying.

He is a relational God.

And not because of anything we added.

He wasn’t desperate for relationships when He created us.

It’s God’s attribute to be a relational and communicative God.

He was in perfect communion with Himself in the three persons of the Godhead before we appeared on the scene.

There was perfect unity and love within the Godhead.

We know this because Jesus, when he prayed to His father just before his betrayal, said this in : “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

Here we see not only that the Father loved the Son, but also that there was unity between the Father and the Son and the Father had given the Son his glory.

The Holy Spirit was also in unity within the Godhead before the foundations of the earth (Hebrew 9:14).

We also see that in the unity of three persons of the Trinity, God created the world.

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness ().”

We must be people who are Biblical in our understanding of spiritual disciplines; and to do that, we must be Biblical in our understanding of God.

Too often we speak about God without much thought of the Trinity.

But when we think about God in three persons and in prayer, we should understand the distinct roles of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Basis of all Prayer: The Sonship of Jesus

On what basis do we, a wretched and sinful people, come to a holy God in prayer?

He is perfect and we deserve his wrath.

So how is it that we can come to Him?

The answer is found in the person of Jesus Christ, the son of God.

This has been the thread running through this class.

In all our talk of meeting with God, we must understand that it is always through a mediator.

This mediator is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The Son of God is the basis of all prayer.

is the most explicit text on this.

“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

When are we in a time of need?

The words of an old hymn speak well to this.

“I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord;

No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.

I need Thee oh I need Thee; Every hour I need Thee

O bless me now my savior; I come to Thee”

-Annie S. Hawkins (1872)

I want to give you today three reasons to have confidence that we can draw near to God:

1) Jesus is our high priest

2) The acceptance Jesus has with the Father is the acceptance we now have in Him ().

This is the essence of justification by faith alone.

3) If God hears the prayers of Jesus, He will also hear our prayers through Jesus ( – “I knew that you always hear me…”).