Experiencing the Privilege of Prayer

If the drama Lisa did for us is right, and I believe it is, that’s a little like prayer. Turning to your neighbor and saying “How are you doing?” “Oh and by the way how are you doing?”, that’s not too unlike prayer. Talking to a friend.

Last year, our family went skiing and we wanted the boys to have some freedom and we didn’t exactly know how to accomplish that. We didn’t want to just say hey, go and do whatever you want to do on the ski slops, so we bought these walkie-talkies so that we could communicate with one another and it turned out to be a lot of fun. You can’t exactly talk when you’re skiing down the slop, especially not the way I ski! However, you could communicate with the other person and then, whenever they got to a stopping point they could communicate with you. The problem occurs if the other person doesn’t have their walkie-talkie on or if they’re on a different channel from you. There are certain things that you have to do in order to make a right and a clear connection.

Matthew 6:5-15

(5) “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 men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. (6) 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. (7) And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. (8) Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (9) “This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, (10) your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (11) Give us today our daily bread. (12) Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. (13) And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ (14) For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. (15) But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Invariably, when we talk about prayer, two questions come up. Why do we do it? What is the purpose of prayer? Why are we laboring over this, why are we trying this? Secondly, how do we do it so that we make a real connection? How do we make a connection that is real with God? I read recently that 17,000 people were surveyed about their prayer habits while they were attending a seminar on prayer for spiritual awakening. So you would suspect that these were people who were really interested in the topic of prayer, and yet the survey showed that this group on average prayed less than five minutes a day. So what’s the problem? Why do so many of us spend so little time in prayer? Why is it so difficult to get ourselves motivated to pray? Jesus said, “Until now, you’ve asked for nothing. Ask and you will receive and your joy will be complete”. So why does prayer so often feel like a burden when God clearly intends it to be a privilege. Why does it feel like drudgery when God desires to release his joy to us through prayer? It may be because we are completely confused about prayer.

I know some of you this past week got the email that Liz Staszak sent that had humorous exerts from children’s prayers. For example, one four year old prayed part of the Lord’s prayer like this: “Father, forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets”. And another one was praying while his dad was listening in, “Dear Harold”, the young child began, “Wait a minute.” the Dad interrupted, “How come you called God Harold?” The little boy looked up and said, “Well that’s what they call him in church. You know the prayer we say, “Our Father, who art in heaven. Harold be thy name”. If we’re honest with ourselves, we are sometimes as confused by prayer as these children are.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we sometimes wonder what prayer really is, and what purpose it serves. We get alone we get quiet, we decide to spend a few minutes in prayer but all we can manage is a few minutes of distracted list making. Our minds wonder or we doze off until we finally give up, and we say to ourselves what was that and why am I doing it anyway. Under the circumstances, it is little wonder that we give it up. It’s little wonder that prayer feels like a burden and not a privilege. And then, I believe some of us give it up because we don’t really know that prayer accomplishes anything. Another anecdote from Liz’ email had a five year old boy saying grace at the family dinner table one night, “Dear God. Thank you for these pancakes”, he said. When he finished his parents asked him why he thanked God for pancakes when they were having chicken. He smiled and said, “I thought I’d see if God was paying attention”.

Sometimes we wonder if God is paying attention, don’t we? How many times can you ask for pancakes and end up with chicken before you feel a little ignored. Jesus’ words sound so promising. He said if we ask we would receive, if we seek we would find. But that’s not always our experience. If we are honest with ourselves we sometimes wonder what’s the use. If we don’t conscientiously wonder this then we live out our wonderment or our skepticism ever time we choose to jump into the flurry of the day’s activities without giving it to God in prayer. Too busy to pray right now, we tell ourselves. I’ll get to it later. But we don’t. And by our omission, we are confessing that we don’t understand prayer, we don’t believe the promise of it, and it feels like a burden to us.

Ok. So can you offer us any help Jesus? What is the purpose of prayer and how do we go about it so that we make a connection with God that is real. Unbelievably and fortunately, we have Jesus’ answer to those questions. He was speaking exactly to that concern when he gave the instruction that we have heard this morning. This same instruction when he gave the Lord’s prayer is also given in Luke Chapter One. In Luke’s biography, Luke gives the context of that prayer. Listen to what Luke says, “One day, Jesus was praying in a certain place” and you know what, if you read the biographies of Jesus you’d find out that this is almost a commentary on Jesus’ life. He was constantly praying in a certain place. “When he had finished, one of his disciples had said to him, Lord teach us to pray, you know, just like John taught his disciples to pray”. So that’s the context and Jesus then answered their question. And before we even look at the answer to those questions, I’m going to make one note that’s remarkable abo ut this whole set of instructions.

You know it’s possible for you and I to learn how to pray. We can be taught how to pray. That’s why we are talking about prayer today, for one reason. We can learn. How do we learn how to pray? By praying. Secondly, pray with those who know how to pray. The third recommendation I would give is read books about prayer. Ok, so what’s the purpose of prayer? Let me paraphrase what Jesus says in his instructions that were read for us this morning. Ok, he says, let me put it simply. Pray is communication with the bible the purpose of prayer is to nurture your relationship with God. You pray to fuel the fires of your communion with God. You pray to grease the skids of God’s will in your life. Prayer feeds your relatedness to God. Without prayer you cannot relate to God at all, but with prayer you can know him more and more deeply. The purpose of prayer is to nurture your relationship with God. And don’t skip past that, it’s more profound than you think. That’s the purpose of your praying, to nurture your relationship with God. That’s why Jesus instructs his disciples to go into their room and close their door and pray in secret because the essence of prayer is personal, intimate, relatedness to God.

The word translated “room” in that go to your room, is sometimes translated “closet” and it referred to a storage chamber for stewards or for the family servant. This is where personal valuables would have been stored. It also referred to any place of solitude. “Get by yourself”, Jesus said, “go into the secret place where you keep your valuables, meet the Father there is secret intimacy”. This is prayer. It’s tempting to make a show of our prayers. It’s tempting to pray for others. Some of us are afraid to pray in public because we don’t think we’ll get it right. Others of us love to pray in public. This is actually when we feel most spiritual. We tell ourselves it doesn’t really matter whether or not other people are impressed by what we say, but everything we say is designed to impress others. Haven’t you heard people who are really preaching when they pray? You know, they are praying to make a point and not praying to nurture their relationship with God. Diane and I go to pray, “Oh Lord, I pray that you’ll show Diane how to be more patient. And I pray that you’ll show her how loving I’ve been, and Lord I just pray for our children that they will learn to respect their father and mother”! It feels good sometimes to pray this way, but this is not really prayer and the rewards of this kind of prayer are all superficial and don’t outlast the admiration of the listener and that’s very short lived.

Listen to what Jesus said again, “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men”. And I want you to know, these were the typical places of prayer in Jesus’ day. “I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full, but when you prayer go into your room, close your door and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”

The purpose of prayer is to nurture your relationship with God. So prayer is about making a real authentic connection with God. Prayer is real communication with God. Heartless, mindless repetition of praises that make no connection to your mind or your emotions are pointless. They are not prayer even if the words you use are religious words. That applies even to mindless repetitions of things like the “Our Father” or the “Rosary”. Religious words, even right religious words, do not amount to prayer. This also applies to unknown phrases repeated over and over again that some people call speaking in tongue. I’m not saying that speaking in tongues is wrong, but I’m saying that some forms of speaking in tongues that I’ve heard are just the repetition of the same nonsensical phrase over and over again. Repetitious babble is not prayer.

Prayer is about making a real authentic connection with God. Prayer is real communication with God. This also means that some, maybe even much of what we do on Sunday mornings here at Gateway doesn’t rise to the level of real prayer. I know from having stood here and having stood up there that much of what we do on Sunday morning does not rise to the level of real prayer. You’re worried about what you’re going to do this afternoon, while we are singing “There must be more”. We’re standing here together saying, “River” which is a biblical image of God’s spirit and his will moving through history, we’re saying “River flow” and what we’re thinking is, how am I going to get to the soccer game this afternoon. “Fire” which is a symbol of God’s purity in our lives, “Fire burn” we’re singing. We’re standing together singing “Fire burn, purify me”, and what we’re thinking is why in the world didn’t I send the mail out yesterday! That’s not prayer, that’s religious babble. Good morning!

“And when you pray”, Jesus said, “don’t 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 in heaven knows what you need before you ask for it”. You see, the purpose of prayer is to nurture your relationship with God, not to convince God that you need help. Help me God, help me God, help me God, help me, help me, help me God, help me please, help me, help me please, help me, help me! You know what I think he’s saying? “Quiet, I get it! I knew already. Communicate with me.” Let’s build our relationship. He knows you need help and he longs to help you. Prayer changes us, not God. Now it’s fantastic and mysterious that we get to participate in God’s will. Helping form God’s will through prayer. Our prayer matters.

But prayer in its essence changes us, not God. I like what one author said, “To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives”. The gods of the pagans were indifferent, unrighteous, unloving and contritious, they were likely to do anything. Much speaking was needed to gain their attention, but the one true God is not this way. He loves to be gracious to us. He is righteous and loving. He knows what we need and he longs to meet our needs.

One person commenting on this teaching of Jesus said, “Always pray to a being who is well informed and willing, in few words and in faith.” The purpose of prayer is to nurture our relationship with God. As we spend time with Him we become more and more like him. We therefore experience more of His grace, more of His joy, more of His power, and more of His presence. The purpose of prayer is to nurture our relationship with God.

Ok, second question, how do we make a connection with God that is real? How do we make a real connection with God? Having given his disciples a glimpse of the purpose of prayer, Jesus gave them their first lesson in how to make a real connection with God. He gives them an example prayer. So let’s listen in; you’ll be very familiar with it.

“This then is how you should pray”, Jesus said, 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, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.”

This prayer gives three characteristics that help us make a real connection with God. This isn’t a formula, it is a helpful guide. So three characteristics that help us make a real connection with God are:

• Prayer must be intimate.
  
  Prayer must be intimate. It is by its very nature an intimate act. In this way our relationship with God is like all other relationships that we are familiar with. If I want to build a real connection with Diane I’ve got to give her the deepest part of me. And I’ve got to go after the deepest part of her. Prayer is intimacy. Our Father would have been a shockingly intimate way for first century Jews to address God. This would have been unthinkable even scandalous freedom toward God. But Jesus instructs his disciples to feel exactly this kind of freedom. He hinted at the same thing in his earlier comments when He said “When you pray, go into your room, close your door and pray to your Father ”, and the repetition of the word your would have been very unusual in Jesus’ language. The emphasis wouldn’t have been lost on his hearers, “Oh”, they would have been thinking, “This is very personal stuff. This is intimate time with my heavenly Father”.
  
  The spirit Jesus conveys is a spirit of deep intimacy. Now don’t miss this. Such talk about God, might have even been embarrassing to Jesus’ listeners. And I want you to know that we might be closer to the spirit of real prayer if we were more embarassed by it. I’m not about to tell you about the intimacies of my life with Diane and this is the kind of spirit that Jesus is creating in prayer; with you, with a loving Father who wants to be our protector, our provider, our friend, our lover. Prayer is first of all intimate.
  
  
• Trustfulness
  
  Like a child on the knee of her father, Jesus calls us to the lap of our heavenly Father. Saying simply this, “Make whatever you want to happen, happen God. Give me what I need today I won’t worry about tomorrow. Forgive me as I have forgiven others and lead me toward what’s right and away from what’s wrong. I put my life in your hands.
  
  That’s it, full trust. This is what James means when he says, “When you ask you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blowing and tossed by the wind”. If you’re familiar with the ministry of Jesus then you know that he never explains the Father. He never apologises for his actions. He never tries to justify. He looks, first of all, at the miraculous and at the lack of the miraculous. He looks at difficulties and at blessings and in all cases and in all circumstances he calls for simple trust. It shouldn’t be surprising that his prayer is soaked in trust, is baked in trust. Second characteristic is trustfulness.
  
  
• Simplicity
  
  No one could ever be impressed by Jesus’ eloquence. No one could be awed by the depth of insight in Jesus’ prayer. How do you say the things that you say? No one would have said that after they heard the model prayer. The Lord’s prayer is short and simple. Again, the goal is not many words but much heart. The goal of prayer is not many words, but much heart. Jesus is not saying that prayers can’t be long. Sometimes there is great pain or great needs that you need to talk to your Father about. The point is that prayer is the simple act of communicating your heart and your needs to God.
  
  Ok, simple, trustfulness, intimacy. The characteristics of our prayer. Now there’s a second way that the model prayer can be a model for us. I’ve used this as a model for prayer in my own life and we’re going to try it this morning. There are six praises in the Lord’s prayer and each of those can serve as a model for us of a theme in prayer.
  
  
  1. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
     
     Praise. The word hallowed means essentially to be made holy to be made sanctified, to be made the one who is set apart. And by name, Jesus means the whole character of God is set apart, he’s holy. Here’s everything else in the world and here’s God. Your awesome, your holy, your unbelievable, I don’t even get it except that you’ve shown yourself to me.
     
     
  2. Your kingdom come
     
     Kingdom is a synonym for reign, for dominion. God rule over everything, including me. Have your way, rule, reign.
     
     
  3. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven
     
     God, just as what happens in heaven is exactly what you want to happen, make it so here on earth and make it so in my life.
     
     
  4. Give us today our daily bread
     
     What’s before me today, God, the needs that I have, provide. You know what they are; here they are, provide for those God.
     
     
  5. Forgive me my debts as I have forgiven my debtors
     
     The debtors is the literal translation here, but it means of course moral debt; transgression or sin. Forgive me and here’s where we do the confession that Lisa was talking about this morning. Forgive me because I have blown it, forgive me for this and for this and for this and for this?..make me someone who forgives others.
     
     
  6. Lead me into what’s right and away from what’s wrong.
     
     

Ok, we’re going to pray. I’m going to give this to you phrase by phrase and I’m going to say a phrase and then I’m going to pray that phrase and then we’re going to take about 15 or 20 seconds and you’re going to pray. Now don’t waste this time. God wants to give us some instruction in prayer this morning, so don’t waste this time. In the secret, in the quiet right now, go into your closet, go into your secret place. Remember intimacy, trustfulness and simplicity. You don’t have to be profound, in fact that’s a good thing, because most of you aren’t! You don’t have to be profound, let’s just go to God and give Him our heart this morning. Ready? I’m going to pray first and then I’m going to have some silence, that’s when you pray all alone. You’re all alone this morning with God. Don’t go to sleep! Let’s pray.

We are two-thirds of the way through 50 days of a spiritual adventure at Gateway. Those of you who have dropped out or have fallen behind I want to encourage you to redouble your efforts; spending time in God’s word and spending time in prayer. We’ve got eight weeks of study related to a central theme. If Jesus were to show up, if we were to experience the presence of the unseen Christ what would happen.

Do you know what we said the first week? If we were to experience the presence of the unseen Christ, we’d hit the deck. We’d fall in worship.

The second thing we said was if we were to experience the presence of the unseen Christ we’d bubble over, we would lavish His love on others, it would pour out of us.

The third thing we said was if we were to experience the presence of the unseen Christ, we would choose right and we would turn away from what’s wrong. We just would, because we would look at him and glow!

The fourth thing we said was if we were to experience the presence of the unseen Christ, we would serve him with gratitude.

The fifth thing we said was if we were to experience the presence of the unseen Christ, we would raise the white flag and surrender to the truth of His word.

And today we have said, if we were to experience the presence of the unseen Christ, we would leap into the privilege of authentic prayer. I think that is exactly what happened to his disciples. I think they watched His life, they watched how He lived it, they watched how it unfolded and one day they could stand it no longer, they said “Jesus, teach us to pray like you do”, because it’s amazing.

I’ve known men and women in my life, and I bet some of you have as well, when they said “Dear God”, you felt you were ushered into God’s presence. They prayed and things happened. I’ve known men and women who have prayed for others and consistently I would watch others begin to slowly weep and you would want to say to yourself “how did you know to pray for that”. Well, I didn’t know, but God knew. And as a young man I said to myself I want to be that kind of man and I’ve come to the middle of my life and I’ve realized I’m not really that kind of man! I want to resolve today, before Gateway Community Church, that when I get to be an old man and you guys come to visit me in my rocking chair at the Sunset Retirement Village I want you to come and sit at the edge of the steps and say, “____________”.

Ok, so those of you who want to go there with me I know you’ve done it 999 times before, but sometimes God answers on the 1000th. Let’s resolve today that we’re going to be those kind of people and you don’t get there unless you pay the price of being intimate with God.