Pt 2 - Encountering God in Prayer
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-Pray for Small Group Leaders-
[Title Slide] Encountering God Through Prayer
Encountering God Through Prayer
Priority of Praise
The Essence of Sin
Matthew 6:5-13 (NIV)
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
“This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
Jesus giving us a framework is NOT SOMETHING ENTIRELY NEW. Though revised because of revelation - Jesus revealing the Father. He is continuing the purpose of prayer from the old testament (Gen 3) through the book of Acts is to call upon God to do what He promised to do.
Prayer is Missional
Prayer is cooperating with God in His mission. Not my mission. Far too often, in my personal experience, prayer has been the purpose of moving my mission forward, whatever that looks like.
Prayer is to call on God in humility for Him to advance His agenda. i.e. Kingdom come, will be done.
John 4:34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish His work.”
So the questions we should be asking is, what is God’s mission, what is His work? -
Kingdom come - souls saved, set free, discover their purpose, and they go make a transcendent difference.
In order to do this, what we talked about last week - we must love God… Jesus said that he who loves me will do what I say.
1. The Priority of Praise
(Why does Jesus start with praise?)
In order for us to really change, we must change what we “love”. We must love God supremely, and that can be cultivated only through praise and adoration.
What I want to talk about today a bit more on this subject is a sub-category of praise- thanksgiving.
Also, we need to understand the difference between “being a thankful person” (which everyone here would say they were) and actually “giving thanks”.
It takes intention, effort, energy to get your mind off yourself and on Him. Give thanks for who he is and praise for what he has done.
2. The Essence of Sin
What is the essence of sin? Pride, yes but what does pride look like.
Romans 1:18-22 “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”
Gods of today - money, sex, power
The essence of sin is - “We don’t give thanks”
This is what pride looks like
Daniel 4:28-37 NLT “Twelve months later he was taking a walk on the flat roof of the royal palace in Babylon. As he looked out across the city, he said, ‘Look at this great city of Babylon! By my own mighty power, I have built this beautiful city as my royal residence to display my majestic splendor.’ “While these words were still in his mouth, a voice called down from heaven, ‘O King Nebuchadnezzar, this message is for you! You are no longer ruler of this kingdom. You will be driven from human society... until you learn that the Most High rules over the kingdoms of the world and gives them to anyone he chooses.’
Isaiah 40:23-25 NIV “He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
Ingratitude: living in the illusion that you are spiritually self-sufficient.
To pray is to accept the fact that one cannot help oneself, has no grounds boasting and has no other hope but to call on the name of the Lord who has promised to be merciful.
Plagiarism: taking credit for something that was a gift
It wrongs God but also puts you in a bad spot because you are unable of producing anything yourself in the future.
And what happens, according to the apostle in Romans 1 is:
Ungodliness leads to wickedness
Ingratitude leads to darkened thinking / futile thinking - pointlessness and then wickedness/sin.
Problem - not knowing purpose - despair.
All because of miss-placed loves.
Ephesians 1:13-14 NLT “Now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.”
Now why wouldn’t we give thanks?
Danger of prosperity.
In times of difficulty it doesn’t take much imagination to see people everywhere falling to their knees in prayer, unfortunately the same cannot be said for times of prosperity.
In the end, we not only rob God of the glory due him, but the assumption that we are keeping our lives going robs us of the joy and relief that constant gratitude to an all-powerful God brings.
In times of prosperity, over the centuries, we forget our need of Him.
Israel would forget it was God and then move on to worship other idols.
Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.
Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden.
Deuteronomy 8:11-19 “Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.””
We are never as thankful as we should be. When good things come to us, we do everything possible to tell ourselves we accomplished that or at least deserve it. We take the credit. And when our lives simply are going along pretty smoothly, without a lot of difficulties, we don’t live in quiet, amazed, thankful consciousness of it. In the end, we not only rob God of the glory due him, but the assumption that we are keeping our lives going robs us of the joy and relief that constant gratitude to an all-powerful God brings.
Conclusion
Psalm 150
All prayer is framed by praise and ends with praise.
The Psalms show us that no matter what we face, however dark and difficult, our lives are moving and will end with praise - before the King himself.
The Scotch catechism says: “a man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.