2. Prayer Takes Practice
Notes
Transcript
I’m so glad that you are here for part two of our sermon series, Less of Me - More of Him. For a lot of us, we are trying to live our lives following Jesus with our own strength and ability. As one who knows this type of life all too well, it’s exhausting, frustrating and often bears little fruit. What we are focusing on in this series is that when we put our strength on the “back burner” of our life and tap into more of God, he literally will supply us the power, wisdom and direction on living life to the full.
The analogy I want you to remember is that of a sail boat. Here’s a picture of one. Without a sail, this vessel is left to either person power rowing or left drifting along wherever the current takes it. That is how a lot of people, including Christians live their lives. However, Jesus on multiple occasions said the God was sending the Holy Spirit to power, direct and guide our lives. So how are we to raise the sails of our lives to connect with the “wind” that God offers us?
We are focusing on the two spiritual disciplines of prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting is a way that we raise the sails in our lives to grab hold of God’s power for our lives. Here’s a picture of a huge ship being powered by the wind. Listen, when those sails are raised and the winds hits, it’s a loud crack and all of a sudden that ship is moving in a powerful way.
One thing I want to emphasis. Your ability to carry out prayer and fasting has nothing to do with God’s love for you. God loves the person who is daily devoted to prayer just as much as he loves the person who never bows their head in prayer. Prayer and fasting are a way for us to tap into all the resources God is offering us to live life on mission with him. I want that truth to be crystal clear.
So what does the Bible say about people who have raised the sails of prayer? What is the outcome of finding a regular rhythm of prayer?
The church is in it’s infancy. The begin to face opposition as two of the apostles Peter and John are brought on trial before the Sanhedrin. After being released they come back to the church and here is what takes place.
On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
“ ‘Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord
and against his anointed one.’
Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
Did they cower in fear? Did they try and figure out a counter strategy? No, they prayed and the place they were meeting was shaken and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke how? Boldly!
James in his letter writes this about the power of prayer.
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
I don’t know how one reads those descriptions and not get a little bit excited about how God wants to work in the lives of his people…if they were only willing to ask.
Speaking from experience, we want this type of prayer in our lives…but it just doesn’t happen naturally. It needs to be practiced. Simply put, the practice of daily prayer needs to be practiced. Prayer is like a muscle. Prayer is a skill that’s developed, and yes it’s going to take some time and work to develop.
Since we are talking about sailing, I was curious about learning how to raise the sails on a boat. I went to YouTube and proceeded to go down a rabbit hole of tutorial videos on how to sail, and raise sails and how all of the gear works. Simply put, raising sails, requires instructions, practice, skill and some hard work.
The practice of prayer takes practice.
Thankfully Jesus gave us a model prayer that we could use to practice with. So, with the time we have left, let’s take a look at Jesus’ model prayer and figure out how we can take this example and begin to practice it in our daily lives.
If you have a Bible or device, go to Matthew 6. If you have the YouVersion Bible app, find Events, then look for Iowa City Church. All the Scriptures and Sermon Notes will be right there for you.
Okay, let’s take a look at this prayer section by section.
“This, then, is how you should pray:
“ ‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
Adoration.
Jesus opens by showing deep love and respect, even worship for who? Father. Jesus provides a new understanding of who God is, he’s father. It’s not just any father…it’s Our Father. He’s accessable to all, and he wants what’s best for everyone. This really helps us focus our prayers better. God isn’t just your personal genie in the bottle answering you wishes. He cares about everyone…listening and working with everyone. But he’s not just any Father, his name is hallowed. It’s where we get the word holy, set apart. He’s unlike anything we can fathom. He’s the creator God who holds the universe in together. He’s all powerful, worthy of worship…and he’s our father.
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
2. Submission
This part of the prayer is critical to us learning to trust God and his ways above our own. We are submitting to God’s kingdom now…today. Jesus is reminding us to let go or our kingdoms and pray that God’s Kingdom and what is happening in heaven would happen here on earth. Is this for something to happen in the future or for something to happen today? It’s for today. What is happening in Heaven, may it happen here in our place. May we surrender our kingdoms over, and instead align our will with God’s Kingdom work.
This is such a crucial part of prayer because it radically changes what and how we pray for certain things. God wants to hear from us, and he wants to hear what we need from him. However, when I reset my life upon God and his kingdom…there are a lot of my requests that seem a bit silly because they are more focused on advancing my kingdom and not God’s. Submitting our will to God’s will frees us up to pray more focused prayers.
Give us today our daily bread.
3. Supplication
Means to earnestly ask for something. By using the word, “daily” what is Jesus implying? He’s implying that this prayer is a daily part of our lives. A daily asking God to provide what we need for each day. Bread is obviously more then just food, however food and our lives are built around eating and being sustained. This is a prayer of asking God to provide for your daily…our daily needs. Here is where you get out your list and ask.
You ask for provision. Protection. Healing. Wisdom. Guidance. You ask for what you need for that day. Remember, in chapter 7, Jesus tells us to ask and keep on asking. There’s nothing wrong with asking, however, as anyone who is a parent knows when we receive our kid’s Christmas list, we help them discern what is needed and what isn’t. God will always answer your prayers, just understand that his answer will more then likely look a whole lot different then what you expected when you asked.
Let me give you a quick example of this. About five years ago, a family started attending our church right around this time of year. Anyway, they didn’t have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving and so we invited them to our house for Thanksgiving. It was a great opportunity to learn their story, especially the husband. After the meal, the husband said that he was frustrated with God, because he was praying and praying to God and he wouldn’t answer him with the questions about life and purpose, etc. I stopped him in his story and said, “You realize God answered your prayer.” “Two weeks ago, we didn’t even know each other. Now you are sitting in a pastor’s house talking about God…what do you want to know.” The husband just had this stunned look on his face. Listen, God will always answer your prayer, it just won’t be in a way you expect.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
4. Confession
This is a matter of confessing our “debts” or our sins to God. Laying them all out there…knowing that God will forgive us and we confess to him. But here is the important twist that Jesus adds…and it’s an important one. Prayer is designed to move us closer to God and to each other…remember, “Our Father”? Jesus is reminding his disciples that we are forgiven in the same way and to the same extent that we forgive others. It is not difficult to see why. Our offense to God is so much greater than man’s offense to us, it would be unreasonable for us to expect forgiveness from God and not be willing to forgive those who have offended us. Confess. Be forgiven. Forgive.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’
5. Supplication
Jesus brings us back to one last request before closing the prayer and going into the day: Don’t abandon me in temptation so that it overwhelms me.
Here’s what we need to understand about life following Jesus:
Jesus was tempted, we should expect no less.
The Enemy is real, and wants nothing more then to derail your connection with God. He will use whatever means is necessary to accomplish this purpose. Prayer is one of the ways we overcome this attack.
When we face tests/temptations, God provides the means by which we can endure it (1 Cor. 10:13) Our prayer, then, is to be able to withstand Satan.
After this ask to over come temptation, there is another reminder about forgiveness and forgiving (which means it’s very important) and then the model prayer abruptly ends. Which honestly means that there isn’t a perfect or even preferred way to pray…it’s just make sure and pray.
We typically use the phrase, “In Jesus name, Amen.” Why is that? Jesus taught, on more then one occasion to ask things in his name.
You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
The closing of “Amen” we pick up from other examples of the NT authors. The word simply means, “truly” “very truly”, or “verily” It’s like confirming what has been prayed is true, or confirming that this is being asked in Jesus Name, which is faithful and true. This has been a traditional ending that was modeled by others and we continue to use…I use it as a way of bringing closure to the prayer.
But here is why Jesus gave this model. His disciples asked him to teach teach them to pray. Jesus gave them a started kit, a model with which they could practice and develop their prayer lives upon.
But like anything, it was going to require practice, determination, and more practice. So here is what we can take away from what Jesus is teaching on prayer:
A life of faithful prayer requires a regular routine of prayer faithfully practiced.
Prayer Can Happen Any Time & Any Place.
Practiced Prayer Requires A Set Time.
Practiced Prayer Requires Persistence.
Jesus teaches this truth to us in a discussion he has with his disciples about prayer. Listen, Jesus understands our struggles with prayer. This is why he reminds us to not give up!
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.
Let me tell you the parable. There was a judge in a town who didn’t fear God or cared what people thought. A widow in that same town kept coming to the judge pleading for justice from her adversary. Every time the judge refused. But the widow kept coming back…again and again. Finally the judge agreed to give the widow justice because she kept bothering him.
According to Jesus here is the lesson from the unjust judge.
And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?
Be persistent in your prayers…don’t give up!
A life of faithful prayer requires a regular routine of prayer faithfully practiced.
Let’s wrap up by putting together an “I will statement”. We have studied the words of Jesus. He is teaching us how to raise the sails of prayer in our lives. What will you do this week with his teaching?
I will set a regular time to pray this week. I will pray through the Model Prayer one time a day all week. I will focus more on Adoration. I will focus on submitting to God’s Kingdom.
A life of faithful prayer requires a regular routine of prayer faithfully practiced.