- Prayer is the sincere desire of our souls expressed to God.
- Prayer is what allows us to establish intimacy with the Creator.
- Prayer creates an awareness of God’s constant nearness to his people.
- Prayer is also how unbelievers, recognizing their sinful nature and need for salvation, reach out by faith to receive God’s gift of eternal life.
- Prayer is the expression of praise to God as well as the medium through which petitions are made on behalf of human need.
Scripture Reading:
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. ’
Our Text for today is just four words from
Matthew 6:5 NIV “And when you pray…..
Introduction
Last week we said that a Christian must be persistent, passionate, and thankful when they pray.
We said that prayer internalizes the burden, in other words deepens the awareness our of our partnership with God. Prayer forces us to wait. Prayer opens our spiritual eyes and in other words enables us to get in touch with what God is doing and how He is doing it. Prayer aligns our hearts with God’s heart in, other words in prayer our desires become more like God's desires so that we can align our wills with the will of God. Prayer enables us to move forward. Once we have prayed we are ready to do anything, until we have prayed we can do nothing, but once we have prayed we can accomplish anything.
I said all of that last week but i never really said what prayer is. To say prayer is communication with God is correct but that is really an oversimplification.
Prayer is the sincere desire of our souls expressed to God.
Prayer is what allows us to establish intimacy with the Creator.
Prayer creates an awareness of God’s constant nearness to his people.
Prayer is also how unbelievers, recognizing their sinful nature and need for salvation, reach out by faith to receive God’s gift of eternal life.
Prayer is the expression of praise to God
Today I want to give us some general and then personal requirements for effective prayer.
I. First some general requirements for effective prayer.
I’ll give you a list and then I’ll briefly talk about them. The general requirements for effective prayer are:
A forgiving spirit
Simplicity
Humility and repentance
The unity of believers
Persistence
Unceasing
A. First a forgiving spirit
Matthew 6:14 NIV For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
Why is forgiveness so difficult for us? We talked about this in Bible Study Wednesday. Our nature thrives on retaliation, on seeking vengeance. To truly forgive as Christ taught us means to relinquish all tendencies to “get even” with those who have wronged us. An unforgiving spirit can overwhelm us and create a barrier between us and God. Our forgiveness toward others is the outpouring of God’s forgiveness expressed toward us.
B. The next general requirement is simplicity.
Let’s look at
Matthew 6:5-6 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.
To the Pharisees, prayer was a performance for the sake of those around them. I want to point out that the words of Jesus, in these verses, are not an indictment against somebody praying out loud in a service or a meeting. If someone is led to pray out loud it’s okay.
“Entering the closet or your room” may be more symbolism than a literal act, suggesting the closing out of the interfering world while we communicate one-on-one with God. You can shut out the world in prayer even in a crowd of people.
What Jesus was talking about was someone praying just for show, to show others how holy they are trying to impress other people and impress God.
C. There's the general requirement of a forgiving spirit, and the requirement of simplicity. Another general requirement is the one of humility and repentance
Luke 18:10-14 NIV “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Both the Pharisee and the tax collector in this story could represent the lost. The tax collector prayed the only prayer that God will respond to from an unsaved person.—a prayer of confession, admission of sin, a cry for mercy.
The prayer of the Pharisee describes the person who considers himself “good enough already” and therefore a credit to God and his kingdom. This person considers his good works the price of admission into the kingdom of God.
D. Another general requirement and one this is important to us in this season of corporate prayer and it is the requirement of the unity of believers
Matthew 18:19-20 NIV “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
The realization and recognition of God’s presence with us will position our prayer requests within his will. Prayer is never like rubbing a magic lamp in order to bring forth some divine genie to do our bidding. Prayer, in its petitions, is primarily seeking the will of our heavenly Father.
E. Persistence is another general requirement of prayer.
We talked about this last week.
Matthew 7:7-11 NIV “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
As we “keep asking, seeking, and knocking,” this very exercise of faith preparing us to receive the answer to our prayers in accordance with God’s will and not ours.
F. The last general requirement for effective prayer is that It must continue unceasingly. It must never stop.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
“Pray without ceasing.” We must keep the communication lines between us and God open constantly. Our very attitude in life should be an expression of prayer to God. This unceasing communication with the Father God will result in a beautiful and cherished “naturalness” in our prayer life.
II. Those were the general requirements for effective prayer. A forgiving spirit, simplicity, humility and repentance, the unity of believers, persistence, and it must be unceasing
Now for the personal requirements. There are four of them
Purity of heart
Faith
In Jesus’ name
According to God’s will
A. First purity of heart
God, through the ministry of the indwelling Holy Spirit, reveals sin when it exists in the lives of his people. Once the Holy Spirit reveals sin, if, after that, we don’t deal with our sin, our prayers are nullified.
Psalms 24:3-4 NIV Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god.
“The hill of the Lord” and “his holy place” describe the experience of personal meeting with God. “Clean hands” indicate that our actions are open for God to see, and “a pure heart” indicates that any sin in our lives is confessed.
B. Faith is an essential for effective prayer
Matthew 21:21-22 NIV Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
Sadly, not every Christian who prays believes that God has the power to answer prayer. To truly believe with intensity of faith requires us to cultivate the gift of faith that God gives to each believer,
Romans 12:3 NIV For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.
The faith that God has distributed to you, is sometimes described as “The measure of faith”.
As a matter of fact that is what it is called in the KJV
Romans 12:3 KJV For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
You cultivate, develop, and strengthen faith from one source and one source only and that source is the Word of God.
Romans 10:17 NKJV So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
C. The next personnel requirement for effective prayer is that it must be made in Jesus' name.
This is not just a religious formula we use to close our prayers. It is a recognition that the source of all good things is Christ. His “name” represents all that he is.
Praying in Jesus’ name means praying with the authority He has given us. He has given us the authority to ask the Father to act on our prayers because we come in His name.
John 14:12-14 NIV Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
John 16:23-24 NIV In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
Think of it this way. Jesus’ name is a key, and if you have the key, it doesn't matter if the key belongs to you or not, if you have it you can open the lock. The power belongs to Jesus, but he has given you, His key. Praying in Jesus’ name is praying for things that will honor and glorify Him. Praying in Jesus' name means the same thing as praying according to the will of God,
I don’t ask on my own merit. I come on the merit of Christ. I just say, “Father, I’m coming to you because your Son said so. I’m coming because of what Jesus Christ has already done for me on the cross. He’s promised that I can ask in his name, so that’s what I’m doing right now.””
D. And last but certainly not the least of the personal requirements for effective prayer is that it must by according to God’s will
1 John 5:14-15 NIV This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
If I had a handheld mic I could drop it right now because praying according to God’s will is indeed the ultimate secret to effective prayer.
Conclusion
God loves to respond to the prayers of his people. We see him respond to the desire of Adam for a helpmate with Eve, the prayer of Abraham in saving Lot and his family, the prayer of Moses in the salvation of his people, the prayer of Elijah in sending down fire upon an altar, and the cry for a Savior in sending his only son, Jesus.
And through the death of Jesus, we’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit, God himself sent as our Helper. Our Helper not only longs to guide and empower us but also to help us pray and He prays for us.
Jude 1:20-21 NIV But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
We’ve been given the incredible gift of praying with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit who searches the deep things of God desires to help us pray. He desires to reveal God’s desires to us in the midst of our circumstances, relationships, and opportunities and longs to help us pray in line with God’s will.
When we pray in the Spirit, we are praying along with the will of God himself. When we pray in the Spirit, we ask God to do the very thing he desires to do. It’s crucially important that we, as children of God, learn how to discern the will of our Father through the Holy Spirit and pray according to that will.
Prayer is meant to be as simple as asking God to fill us with the knowledge of his desire and then praying in accordance with that desire in full faith because God will always fulfill his promises.
But when we don’t know what to pray, we can trust in and lean on the groanings of the Spirit.
Romans 8:26-27 NIV In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
The Holy Spirit prays for you. He intercedes on your behalf. So great is his love for you that he asks God to help you. So great is his desire for you to walk in the abundant life that he intercedes on your behalf when you don’t know how to pray.
God in his grace, blessed you with the Holy Spirit to help you pray and intercedes for you, all because he loves you. You’ve been given an incredible, powerful gift in praying with the Holy Spirit. Listen to your Helper as you enter into your time of prayer.
Prayer is everybody’s privilege. The gift of prayer is offered to all, and all of us may call upon the power of our almighty God.
Not all of us are called to be pastors, preachers, teachers, evangelists, or exhorters. God gives everyone a gift and a task, according to his ability. But no such restrictions regarding ability are placed on the art of prayer. This gift is for all.
Let's Pray
Thank you for this great gift of Your time, Your guidance, Your strength, Your comfort, Your relationship. Help us to accept these gifts and use them in our lives, to connect with You through prayer and really get to know You, to listen for Your responses and follow Your guide. In Jesus’ name Amen.
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