I would like to speak to you about prayer this morning. And I want to tell
you the reason why. The lack of a faithful and lively prayer life is a great
sin. I realize that that may sound blunt. But I want it to sound blunt
because it’s true. It is a great sin because it reflects a heart of pride.
People don’t pray because they don’t think that they need to. How foolish!
But that isn’t enough, Jesus is clear. He says that we ‘ought’ to pray – and
that ‘always’. Now, I know that trying to manipulate you by the skillful use
of guilt feelings is not only wrong, but it won’t work. But I would like to
encourage you to pray. I am convinced that while a real and lively prayer
life can be difficult at times, it is a great blessing. So, this is what I
am going to do this morning. I am going look at prayer from different
perspectives. To be more precise, I am going to look at you at your prayers
from different perspectives. It is my hope – and my prayer – that you all
will be encouraged in your prayers as a result.
Let’s start with this. When you pray, pray like a sinner. That shouldn’t be
difficult to do since you really are a sinner. But let me add this. Pray
like a sinner who has been saved by grace. Let me fill that out. The prayers
of a sinner are prayers of repentance. We come to God aware, at some level,
that we come as sinners. And so, repentance makes perfect sense. I remember
hearing a young Christian say something about how he sins once or twice a
day. As I heard that it was clear to me that this person doesn’t understand
God’s Law or himself very well. Our sin isn’t just this or that act. Our sin
starts with the attitudes of our hearts and goes from there to our thinking,
our hopes, our expectations and yes, our actions. ‘Behold, God puts no trust
in his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight; how much less
one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!
[Job 15:15-16] We sin almost with each breath. We are sinners. Our prayers
need to reflect that. We come to God in the spirit of repentance. But let us
not stop there. Because of Jesus, we have experienced the amazing blessing
of the forgiveness of our sins. Can you imagine! Sinners like us, completely
forgiven. It takes the breath away. And yet, it’s true. And so, when we come
to prayer, we also come rejoicing. Jesus has fully dealt with my sins! And
the depth of our rejoicing is, to some degree, related to the depth of our
repenting. So, when you go to prayer, go as a sinner, remember your
sinfulness, but go as a sinner who has been forgiven by the grace of Jesus.
Let’s move on. When you go to prayer, go as a child, God’s child. You are,
you know. ‘Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
that we should be called the children of God.’ [1 John 3:1] Do you have a
picture of what that means? Here’s one that works for me. Picture a father
taking a walk around the block with his very young child. They stride along
the sidewalk, this big person and, next to him, this little person. But they
aren’t merely walking side by side. The father is holding his child’s hand.
And you know how parents hold the little hands of their small children. The
child wraps his hand around your index finger, and you wrap your hand around
his whole hand. And you know why. This is for the safety of the child. If he
should stumble, he won’t fall. You hold him up by his hand. When it’s time
to cross the street, there’s no danger that the child will walk out in front
of some car. You hold him by the hand. But there is also the intimacy of
physical touch. Sure you hold the hand of other children, but it’s different
when it’s your own. It’s a good picture of the special bond between the two
of you. Why else do lovers hold hands? Most of you can see yourself as the
responsible adult in my picture. But switch it around and put yourself in
the place of the little child, this little child who knows nothing about
keeping children safe or the symbolism of hand holding. All he knows is that
his daddy is holding his hand. And somehow, because of that, he feels safe
and specially loved. That’s you. When you go to prayer, go as the child that
you are. Pray as a child taking a walk with his daddy, chattering about his
view of the world from three feet off the ground. And pray knowing that your
Father is completely interested in everything that you have to say.
Pray as someone who is at a scheduled appointment. Picture the difference
between these two scenarios. The husband has just come home from work. He
greets his wife with a kiss and sits down at the kitchen table to read the
sports page and quickly becomes engrossed in the latest news. The wife is
busy with the last bits of getting dinner on the table. There are just a few
more things to do, and it’s a good thing. Dinner needs to happen soon if the
different members of the family are going to get to where they need to that
evening. Now, one of these two asks the other a question about how the day
went. Hold on to that image. Next scenario. The supervisor has called a
meeting of the people in his department. He wants to go over where everybody
is at on the big project that they have been working on. Everyone is there
in the conference room and the supervisor asks a question. Now, let’s
contrast these two situations. In the kitchen scenario neither person is
especially focused on the question. They are distracted by the newspaper or
the preparation of the meal. In the second scenario, the supervisor has
everyone’s attention. Everyone is very focused on his question. Any
distraction is put far away. When you pray, your Father listens not like one
of the two people in the kitchen. He listens like the people in the
conference room. He is intently focused on what you are saying. There are no
distractions. He is listening to you. So, when you go to prayer, pray like
someone who has God’s complete attention. Because you do.
When you pray, pray as a servant. The primary focus of a servant is pleasing
his master. That’s what’s at the top of his priority list. That is the most
important thing. And so, the key question for a servant is always, ‘How can
I serve my master well?’ You are a servant of Christ. Your top priority is
to please Him. If that is true in your life, it will show in your prayers.
The first priority in your prayers will be, ‘How can I serve my master well?
’ That desire will determine what kinds of things you think are important to
pray about. Now, if that isn’t happening in your prayers the solution isn’t
merely to add more items to your prayer list. The priorities of your life
also need to change. You need to take the next step in developing a servant’
s attitude to this life. But there is a flip side to this. While the servant
is called to place his master first, the master in this relationship is
called upon to care for his servants. The psalmist understood this. ‘Behold,
as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a
maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our
God, till he has mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon
us, for we have had more than enough of contempt.’ [Psalm 123:2-3] Here the
servant appeals to his Lord for protection. That is also a part of your
prayers. There are things that you need. Ask for them. That also is included
in being a servant serving Christ.
Then, when you come to prayer, be yourself. And by that all I mean is don’t
try to be someone more mature, more experienced in prayer, more holy. Don’t
try to say things in the ‘just right’ words. If you struggled to do that
when talking with a friend, he’d look at you funny and ask, ‘What’s wrong
with you?’ So, why do it with God? Be honest. If you’re having a lousy day,
say so. Be yourself.
Now, those are some perspectives to consider. You might completely
understand some of them and need to grow into others. Be patient with
yourself. Growth takes time. Let me offer now some practical suggestion on a
‘how-to’ level. Use what helps and forget the rest.
If you don’t have an established habit of daily prayer then you really do
need to nail down some specific time in your schedule. Hit or miss doesn’t
work when it comes to paying bills or getting to the job so why should it
work when it comes to prayer? I think that it works best to tie your prayer
time to something else already established in your schedule. So, tell
yourself, ‘Each day, right after my morning coffee’ – or whatever it may
be – ‘I will spend time in prayer.’ This, then, becomes the time, each day,
when you do nothing else except pray.
Focus on the quality of your prayers and not on the quantity. Two minutes of
serious prayer is better than a half hour of pious language that really
means nothing. So, forget the clock.
Pray out loud. This was normal in previous eras of the Church. This is how I
pray. It helps to focus the mind and maintain the distinction between
thinking and praying. And there are times in the middle of my praying when I
want to think about what I want to say. But then there are times when I want
to talk to my Father. I suspect that praying out loud helps to make it feel
more real.
Prepare yourself to pray. Settle yourself and turn your attention from
whatever you were doing to talking with your God. There have been times when
you have consciously set aside something you were pondering so that you
could have a conversation with another person. Failure to do that affects
the conversation. The same is true of prayer. Put aside what you were
thinking about and prepare yourself to speak with God. Reading a bit of
Scripture, particularly a Psalm or something from the Gospels, can help.
Reading printed prayers can also help. There is a collection of Puritan
prayers as well as some brief prayers in the Book of Common Prayer that
might help. But however you do it, prepare yourself to pray.
Last suggestion. Pray about your prayer life. Obedience here, as in every
part of faithful living, is a matter of God’s kind grace. You will not
develop a good prayer life just by trying harder. And if you falter at
this – and you will from time to time – remember that the solution is still
the same: repentance of sin and faith in our Lord Jesus. And, bit by bit,
you will see your prayer life develop.
