PRAYING WITH THE RIGHT MOTIVES 2
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 11 viewsNotes
Transcript
What is the right motive for prayer?
How can we pray and know that God will give the desires of our heart? By asking for the glory of God. When a person wants something from God, he must want it so that he can glorify God.
We must always remember that what God is after is communion and fellowship with us, for us to draw closer and closer to Him, learning more and more about Him and worshiping and serving Him more and more.
This is the way God is glorified, by our walking closely to Him and honoring and praising His name. Therefore, if we want anything from God, we must want it so that we can glorify Him—so that we can draw closer to Him and make Him better known to others.
1. If a person wants health, life, strength, or a strong testimony, it must be so that he can glorify God.
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
2. If a person wants to bear fruit in his life and work, or in his church and upon his land, it must be so that he can glorify God.
Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
3. If a person wants the basic necessities of life—food, clothing, and shelter, or purpose, meaning, and significance, or assurance, confidence, and security—or if he wants more position, authority, or money, it must be so that he can glorify God and the Lord Jesus Christ in his life and testimony.
And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
ILLUSTRATION:
One day a lady was giving her little nephew a lesson. He was generally a good, attentive child, but on this occasion he could not fix his mind on his work. Suddenly he said, “Auntie, may I kneel down and ask God to help me to find my marble?” His aunt having given her consent, the little boy knelt by his chair, closed his eyes, and prayed silently. Then he rose and went on with his lesson contentedly. …The next day, the lady said, “Well, dear, have you found your marble?” “No, Auntie,” was the reply, “but God has made me not want to.”
WORLDLINESS: FRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD
Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
What is the cause of temptation and wrongdoing?
James uses strong language. He calls the people adulteresses and adulterers. He means two things.
.
1. Being an adulteress and adulterer means that a person is guilty of spiritual adultery.
Jesus Christ holds His relationship with us in the highest regard.
Our relationship with Him is to be so close that it can be described only by the closeness and intimacy of marriage.
In fact, our relationship with Christ can even be closer and more meaningful than marriage.
We are to know, believe, and understand Christ just as we are to know, believe, and understand our husbands and wives.
But with Christ there is far more of a bond and relationship than what we can have with each other as men and women of earth.
Jesus Christ actually lives within our bodies in the person of the Holy Spirit. We are to live, move, and have our being in Christ and He in us. This is the reason believers are called the bride of Christ.
Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me. For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
We must never forget that our Lord gave His life and died for us.
He has done everything He can to save us and to create a relationship with us.
And it cost Him unbelievable pain
—the pain of the cross
—the pain of bearing all the sins of the whole world
—the pain of bearing the wrath of God against those sins
--the pain of God the Father forsaking and rejecting Him when He bore our sins
—pain that defies description
—and it was all for us.
Therefore, we must not commit spiritual adultery against Him by turning to the world.
Spiritual adultery is:
=> not obeying the commandment of the Lord.
=> idolatry, the worshipping of other gods.
=> unclean works and sinful behavior.
=> giving oneself to detestable and abominable things.
=> forgetting God and turning one’s back upon Him.
=> refusing to turn to God and not knowing the Lord.
=> forsaking God.
=> disbelief in Christ.
=> being ashamed of Christ and His Words.
How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;
2. Being an adulteress and adulterer means that a person is actually committing adultery.
The people of that day lived in a generation just like all other generations, a generation where immorality and all forms of sexual vices were running rampant.
As Jesus said, “This is an adulterous generation”—a generation that is so full of sexual immorality that it can be characterized as adulterous.
Some believers had apparently been caught up in the immorality of the world, living lives of impurity.
They are called adulterers and adulteresses because that was just what they were.
They were having affairs behind closed doors and in the dark.
3. Note a third thing, the question asked by Scripture: “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?”
What does this mean?
Just what Scripture says: the person who is a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
What does it mean to be a friend of the world?
=> It means to live for this world and the things of the world: houses, lands, money, position, power, popularity, clothes, recognition, and anything else in this world that people focus upon and put before God.
=> It means to seek the things of this world so much that you will deceive, lie, cheat, and steal to get them.
=> It means to seek the fleshly pleasures and partying of this world.
Everything in this world passes away.
This world is physical and material; therefore, it has the seed of corruption in it.
Because of this it stands against God.
It is not eternal nor holy and righteous like God. Therefore, any person who is a friend of this world stands against God.
He stands against all that God is.
Now, what is the cure for temptation and wrongdoing?
There are two cures.
1. Believers must know this: the Spirit of God yearns over us with jealousy.
Note that this point is a question: “Do you think?” The point is something that we must think about and know.
The Holy Spirit who dwells in believers..
. lusts, yearns, desires, and longs after us.
. yearns with envy and jealousy over us.
When does the Holy Spirit yearn over us with jealousy?
All the time, but in a special way when temptation confronts us and we do wrong.
The Holy Spirit is always yearning over us and He is always jealous over us.
But if we turn away from Christ and become a friend of the world—if we become adulterers and adulteresses—the Spirit of God does not cast us off and turn away from us.
He loves us and cares for us and wants to save us.
He yearns and longs for us with deep, intense jealousy—yearns and longs for us to return to Christ and give Him our full devotion.
2. Believers must know this:
God gives the humble believer grace and more grace, but He resists the proud.
Grace means the favor and blessings of God, any favor and blessing which God gives.
When the believer faces temptation or does wrong, God meets the believer’s need, no matter what it is: strength, wisdom, power, perseverance, patience, forgiveness.
The believer does not deserve God’s grace and blessing, but God loves him. Therefore, God gives him whatever he needs.
In fact, God gives more grace, that is, grace upon grace, grace and more grace.
But note a biblical fact: God has to stand against the sinner and his evil. God has to oppose and resist and eventually put him to the most terrible shame. But this is the glorious gospel:
God gives grace and more grace to the humble.
The person who turns to God away from the world and his wrongdoing will receive all the grace from God he will ever need and then some.
God will look after and care for him just like a child—loving, nourishing, nurturing, feeding, clothing, sheltering, protecting, and giving more and more life to him forever and ever.
For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
ILLUSTRATION:
If we stay humble, we will continue to receive God’s mercy. But pride will be our downfall every time.
God has a way of humbling the proud and seeing to it that blessings come to the humble, as is well illustrated in the following humorous story:
An older brother always made fun of his younger siblings. The elder son prided himself in being so much smarter than his “dumb” little sister and brother. One of his favorite tricks was to make fun of them in front of his friends by offering them the choice between a nickel or a dime. He would hold out his hand with a nickel and a dime then tell them to pick which one they wanted. Each time the two little kids would go for the nickel. The young teen would then die laughing with his friends. One friend had seen the trick a dozen times so he pulled the two little kids aside and asked why they always chose the nickel. Their response was priceless. With a mischievous smile they agreed, “If we picked the dime he would quit giving us all of those nickels.”