Message Notes for Sunday, July 28th: "Jesus’ Keys to Prayer. Part I" 1Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” 2Jesus said, “This is how you should pray: “Father, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. 3 Give us each day the food we need, 4 and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation.” 5Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story: “Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, 6A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’ 7And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ 8But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence. 9“And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 10For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11“You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? 12Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! 13So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” Prayer—a practice, a concept, a tool and a method for communicating and connecting with the Divine. ----------------- As believers we often say “I’ll be praying for you” as a way of assuring others of our care and support for them during time of trouble. But, even though we pray, do we understand what we pray, how we pray, and why we pray—or do we pray, just because we know that’s something we need to do as good Christians? Something to ponder on, isn’t it? To understand prayer in our lives we also need to understand basics in our own interactions with each other. When I counsel couples, their top relational issue is communication. It doesn’t take me long to figure out that their trouble is not communication, because both are constantly communicating—even if one in the party is silent, their silence is communicating loudly! The task becomes how to communicate effectively. The assumption is that the other party needs to learn to express themselves better…and many cases this is true. On the other hand, the hardest part of effective communication is listening to what the other person has said, not just being able to convey your issue clearly. To hear and understand what another said is not just hearing their verbal expression, but listening to what they may mean, as well as, listening to their non-verbals, such as, voice tone, eye movement, facial expression, and mood. We often react not to what the person actually said, but to their non-verbal expressions. When I’m under strain and my cup is overflowing my expressions will often be curt, straightforward and to the point. I’m not thinking how the other will respond; I simple go into an automated response mode. So, instead of coming off open and understanding, I appear cold and uncaring. Which, of course, is not the case…I’m just overcooked! How does all this relate to Jesus’s teaching on prayer in Luke 11? Mind you, the religious experts made their living off showy public prayers demonstrating to the people how wonderful they were and how they are to be admired. But, Jesus strove to make a course correction in how His followers were to understand prayer. Mainly, prayer is not a “religious requirement.” It is not saying and repeating well composed prayers; this doesn’t make you a better person, nor does it ensure you are more religious. God doesn’t manage a prayer supply house where we submit our requisition and He FEDEX’s it the same day. (1) Jesus refocuses us on who God is and when we begin our communiqué with God we take the focus off our need and want (what am I going to get out of this) and direct our thinking to God Himself, “Father, may your name be kept holy.” When we invoke “hallowed be Thy name” we are employing the first key to effective communication…it’s not about me, but YOU. I can’t understand you if I’m only thinking about myself. Here, Jesus posits that we can’t understand God, if we’re only thinking about “me”—my wants, my needs, my hurts, my shortcomings or my grief. (2) The next key to effective prayer distinguishes God’s view from our worldview. “May your Kingdom come soon.” When we pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done” we abandon our world perspective and adopt that of our Creator. We live in a consumerist culture, and much of our life revolves around buying and obtaining “things” in our life. If we see God as the CEO of an Eternal Amazon where we can order more “things,” better health, a good job, a nice home, or world peace;” we’re totally misunderstanding God’s Kingdom entirely. Remember Jesus claimed that He was ushering in the Kingdom of God—a new and fresh view of the world, of time and of eternity with an entirely different set of values from the material world. So if we’re going to understand God and what God has for us in life, we have to understand God’s Kingdom—the way God does things and His mission for us. Just as every soldier needs to know the mission of their Commander, or every employee needs to know the mission of their boss; so believers need to be in tune to God’s mission for the world and our part in it. Additionally, it is critical that they know that they are going to have the resources to accomplish the mission. (3) And so the next key to prayer, is knowing ahead of time that God is going to supply us and equip us with what we need to fulfill His purposes in our lives. So, when we pray “Give us this day our daily bread” we profess that we trust God to provide for us in advance and we have the assurance that He will provide. This is called “faith.” When Kim request that I go on an errand, let’s say to pick up a loaf a bread and a gallon of milk, she has faith that I’ll return back with what she’s requested, not a rack of ribs and a gallon of fruit punch. And so, when we pray, we pray with the knowledge God is acting to supply our need. This is called “sufficiency.” We here of “self-sufficiency,” but when we pray, we acknowledge that we’d have nothing without God—the sun by day, the moon and stars by night, the soil in which we plant our seeds, the rain to water them and nature to grow them in grain for our bread, and fruit and vegetables to fill our pantry. So Jesus reminds us that ultimately we depend on God for everything and in real terms, our sufficiency is not in of our self alone, but in our God who provides. Faith in God’s sufficiency is what James wrote about in the first chapter of his letter (vv 6-8), 6But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. 7Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do. Basically, James, in these few verses sums up the first 3 points I’ve addressed, when I pray: (1) Its God, not me; (2) I need to think in terms of God’s Kingdom view, not my world view and (3) By faith, I trust God is already supplying what I need and when I need it. However if I profess on the one hand God is going to take care of my needs, and yet on the other hand I don’t trust or believe He will come through then I nullify or cancel out faith. Again, if my wife asks that I be home at a certain time, and I arrive an hour later; the next time she asks me to be home at a certain time, she doesn’t have the assurance or trust that I’ll be home when I said I would because I haven’t proved reliable. Because of broken promises and assurances, because we’ve been let down by others, because others have disappointed us we often frame God similarly. We almost expect God not to hear us, let alone answer us—why should God be any different than anyone else in our lives. This is why Jesus reminds us that when we pray we recall (1) God is God and we’re not {Our Father, Hallowed be they Name}; (2) God’s world operates with different values than our own {They Kingdom Come, Thy Will be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven} for it plays by God’s rules and not ours; His purposes, not mine; (3) God persists 24 hours a day to give me everything I require to do what I need to do to be successful, purposeful, and faithful in this life, and; by faith I have a single minded focus that God is giving me everything I need—not, He might come through for me. There are more keys to examine on how we can be effective communicators with God, and we’ll pick up on additional keys next week. However, the biggest take away we have today is that effective prayer is not about crafting the right words, or saying the right things, or by being particularly religious. The best start in effective prayer begins with what’s effective in our conversations with others. If we want to be effective convey to others, it is not about what I’ve said or didn’t say to them, but whether I heard and understood them or not. MY #1 JOB IN THE ACT OF COMMUNICATION IS FULLY LISTENING AND UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE OTHER PERSON IS SAYING. In His model prayer, Jesus is giving us keys as to who God is, so we can understand God from the ‘get-go.’ Basically, Jesus is saying that God isn’t the one who doesn’t right back or doesn’t return my call; God isn’t the one who misunderstood what I said or meant, God isn’t the one who broke a promise, or violated my trust. God is consistent, but so often our prayers are so “one-way” we shut off what God wants for us. Yes this is what Jesus meant when He prayed, “Father, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. 3Give us each day the food we need…” So the next time you pray it about God and not about me, it’s about His kingdom and not my domain, my world or my problems, and it’s about His ability and desire to provide and not my own ability alone. Ponder these things, see if these keys can help you unlock some doors that others keys failed to open and come back next week to discover those additional keys that can enhance and grow your prayer life as well.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 22:54:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015