FHBC Sermon Notes

"As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools." So the quotes go. However, is this what prayer is about? Is it the desperation cry? If so, if this is our default manner of approaching God in prayer, what does this say about our relationship with our Lord?

Three Instructions Concerning Prayer

1. A lesson on why we pray. (11:1)

a. ...because Jesus prayed.

Jesus had all the people following him, looking daily for healing and the word of God. Yet, even Jesus took time out from this take time for prayer. It was important for Jesus to connect and commune with His Father. So also do we need to do this. Do it thought not as an expectation or as formulaic response to our duty before God.

b. ...because prayer identifies us to others as Christians.

Prayer is a mark of our discipleship. Note the disciples request. Johns disciples were men of prayer. It was a mark of is followers. He wanted to marked as a disciple of Jesus. Again though we do not do it out of obligation. It isn't a badge of honor, yet, there is something about us as Christians that desires to prayer.

Futhermore, Christian prayer is different from other religions. Christ is the mediator of our prayer, and we prayer because of what he has done for us. As such it isn't the formula and rules that drives us but the same intimacy that Jesus has with the Father, we also gain because as his children we are him.

The controversy over the inauguration and the benediction highlights this this year.

2. A lesson on what we pray. (11:2-4)

a. ...to commune with the Father.

We can call the Lord God of the universe "Father". This is a radical new idea Jesus is saying. We were the enemies of God, and in Jesus we can be added as children. Let us not think that we can call God Father without Jesus. We are not children by blood and birth anymore than the animals and the rocks are his children. For being made of his hands, doesn't make us children, unless he also makes us his children as he has done in Jesus. Luke 3:7-9

b. ...to acknowledge God's holy character.

Sometimes we ask that God make us holy, however, perhaps the better way to pray is that He make us an instrument of His holiness. After all, we have no holiness of our own. We a reformed and fixed by the blood of Jesus, instead we die to our sin and are reborn in the Holy Spirit. We are in turn his instruments, not holy vessels in and of our selves. We truly are jars of clay. 2 Corinthians 4:7

c. ...to the arrival of God's kingdom.

It is the cry of the church in this age, until Jesus comes. Come Lord Jesus! Is this truly our prayer each time disaster occurs, or when blessings are received?

d. ...to request the provision of our daily needs.

We are to pray for our daily provisions. God does care about our daily needs, and so we must and should acknowledge this.

e. ...to plead for God's forgiveness.

It is a declaration that our greatest need isn't food and shelter. Death will find us all and so it is that what we need most is not bread, for a dead man needs no bread, but what we need is forgiveness, that in the forgiveness that comes from Jesus we may be conquerors of death.

There is to a connection here that in Jesus we are also extending that same forgiveness to each other. It is clear want we cannot receive the mercy and forgiveness of God when we do not do it ourselves. Our assurance of our forgiveness is found in how we forgive others.

f. ...to ask for God's power to keep us from succumbing to temptation.

It is the power of God that prevents us from running headlong into temptation. Do we truly realize this? Is this in our prayers?

These are hard and difficult assertions. I prayer to little and to often for moments and personal needs that do not seek God's full glory. As we apply this, Jim's challenge to us is to the let this prayer shape our prayers this week, and for many to come.