This is our second week in our series
on prayer. If you remember, we talked last week about what prayer is and we
said that prayer is practicing the presence of God. I hope that you’ve been
practicing the presence of God over the last week. And we talked about the
three things you need to do to practice the presence of God: resist the devil
and his temptations, humble yourself before God, and draw near to God. So last
week we talked about what prayer is, and today we are going to talk about why
prayer is. Why do we pray?
I think a lot of times we approach
prayer in a kind of…reluctant way. Or maybe cynical is a better word. You ever seen
on a show or a movie or something where a director is talking to an actor about
what he’s going to do in an upcoming scene, and the actor kind of snobbishly
says, “Why would I do that in this scene? What is my motivation?” What’s my
motivation?
I think we approach prayer this way
sometimes. We know what we are supposed to do. Everyone tells us that we are
supposed to pray. We say, “Keep on praying. I’m praying for you. I think you
really need to pray about this. Just say a prayer before you do it. Pray, pray,
pray.” Why do people tell us to pray all the time?
First, I think it’s possible that
prayer has become the default answer when a person really has no clue what to
do. When someone tells you that you should pray about something, I think a lot
of times what they are really saying is, “I don’t have a solution for you. No
one is going to have a good solution for you. I’m going to tell you to pray
about it so that you’ll stop asking me for answers.”
Now you may say, “That’s a little
presumptuous.” But think about it. When do we tell people we will be praying
for them? After something terrible has happened or looks like it might happen,
and there’s nothing we can do about it. If there’s something we can do about
it, we help them fix their problem. When someone comes to you and says, I have
a broken finger, you say, “I’ll take you to the emergency room.” When someone
comes to you and says, “I have cancer,” you say, “I’ll pray for you.” Good luck
with that.
Now telling someone that you’ll pray
for them isn’t bad. That’s not wrong. But I want you to think about this: how
often do you tell someone that you will pray for them and you really do it?
What percentage of the time do you remember to pray for those people?
Yeah,
it’s not a very high percentage is it.
So here’s the point of all this: we
have turned prayer into an excuse for when we can’t help a person any other
way. When we can’t fix someone’s problem, we feel bad, so we want them to think
we are doing something to help, and we tell them we will pray for them, but we
rarely remember to actually pray for them.
I’ve got some news for you today:
prayer was meant to be more than a cop-out. Prayer is also meant to be more
than a wish-list. Prayer is meant for much, much more than we use it for. It makes
me so sad to see how little we use prayer today, and how we misuse it. It’s
like, ok
Wouldn’t you just be devastated at all
the lost years? Beautiful music could have been played on that violin. It could
have been so much more than a key-ring holder. If only the owner would have
seen the potential in it.
Prayer is the same way. All we use it
for is asking for stuff, praying for our food, and telling people that we’ll
pray for them. This is the secret to unlocking a great prayer life: discovering
all the reasons for prayer. I want to give you today three big reasons to pray
that we don’t commonly think of, and they are based out of our scripture for
today in John chapter 14.
One of the first big reasons to pray
is found in Jesus’ conversation with Philip. Philip says, “Show us the father
and we will be satisfied.” And Jesus basically says, “You don’t get it. I am
the father. The father is me. I and the father are one.” So when we pray, when
we pray to Jesus, we are praying to God also. We are talking with God. We are
communing with God. We are practicing the presence of God. This is when we get
to know God. This is when we draw closer to God.
This is a huge reason to pray! Praying
helps us to know God. Has anybody ever said something to you like, “Hey, do you
know…John Smith?” And you say, “I don’t know him…but I know OF him.” What does
that mean? That means you know about him. You’ve heard some of the stuff he’s
said or done. But you have never had actual conversation with him, or if you
have, it’s been just a little bit and pretty insignificant.
Hear me clearly on this: one of the
biggest problems we have in the church today is that we have lots of people who
know OF God, and only a few people who actually KNOW God. Prayer is the
relationship-forming aspect of Christianity. Hear that again: prayer is the
relationship-forming aspect of Christianity. Prayer is practicing the presence
of God, right? So when we pray, God is close to us. He is here with us.
Christianity does not work as a long-distance relationship. If you wonder why
your Christianity seems empty, why it lacks depth, and you come to me and say,
“Pastor Dan…I’m so sad…I don’t think God likes me. I go to church. I do good
things. I’m a nice person. But I don’t feel like God is close to me.” I’ll look
you square in the eye and say, “How’s your prayer life?” That’s when God can
get really close to you.
Prayer is the relationship forming
aspect of Christianity. God won’t force himself on you. He won’t force you to
talk to him. You have to invite him in through your prayer time. Invite him to
be close to you. So that’s the first big reason to pray: praying helps us to
know God.
The second big reason to pray is found
in verses 13 and 14 of chapter 14 and they say: “I will do whatever you ask in
my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask
me for anything, I will do it.” How many of you are thinking of money right
now? Man we hear those verses and we get this gleam in our eye. Anything? Did
you say, anything? We often read these verses and we miss the qualifier that’s
in there. Look at verse 13 again: I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the
Son. God does not promise to be our genie in a bottle. God promises that
anything we ask for will be given to us on one condition: the thing that we ask
for must bring glory to God. It will not bring glory to God for you to win the
lottery.
The Bible gives us a great example of
this promise being used the right way. We find it in I Kings chapter 3. God
comes to King Solomon and says, “Solomon, ask for anything, and I’ll give it to
you.” And Solomon basically replies, “God you’ve been so good to me and my
family. You’ve made me king of
That’s what Jesus is talking about in
John 14 when he says you can ask for anything, so that it may bring glory to God. So the second big reason to pray
is that Jesus will give us anything we ask for that will bring glory to God.
But we live in such an individualistic culture, that this has ceased to become
motivation for prayer. Do you remember what we prayed a little bit earlier? Thy
kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven? Do we really mean
that?
Well…we should! At some point, we have
to stop asking what we get out of God, and ask what is God getting out of us.
At some point we have to realize how small we are and how big God is. At some
point we may need to do something for God without expecting anything in
return!!! What a hard concept for us to grasp. People hear this and say so let
me get this straight…I can pray for something that will bring glory to God?
Yep. And God will do it? Yep! And God will get glory? Yes! And I’ll get
nothing? Most likely! So…there’s nothing in it for me? Nope! So…why would I do
it? Because he’s God! He deserves it! He deserves to be worshipped and praised
and exalted and magnified and all those other big church words! God is GOD!
Religion is not about you, it’s about God! You have the privilege and honor to
pray for something that would bring glory to God! The creator of the universe!
You don’t need to get something out of it! It’s about God.
Finally, the third big reason to pray
is pretty simple: God commands it. Verse 15 says, If you love me, you will keep
my commandments. We already know that God loves us. The scriptures tell us that
Christ shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, he died for
us. Gave up his life for us. So we know that he loves us. How do we show God
that we love him? We obey him. And Part of obeying him is talking to him. Love
the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, right? That’s
the greatest commandment. It’s hard to imagine how we could love God and not talk
to him and draw close to him through prayer.
I hope you are starting to see a
pattern here. What is prayer? Practicing the presence of God by resisting the
devil, humbling ourselves, and drawing close to God. Why do we pray? It helps
us to know God, it brings glory to God, and it shows God that we love him. Do
you see the pattern? Prayer isn’t about us!!! Prayer is about God. Prayer is
about us approaching the king of the universe, the everlasting God, and
bringing glory and honor to his name.
This does not look like the world’s
definition of prayer. The world’s definition of prayer is that thing you do
when you need God to give you something. In the world’s definition, prayer is
about us. But prayer is not about us, prayer is about God. We have forgotten
that. We’ve totally missed it. Will prayer change your life? Yes. But that’s
not why we pray. That’s an added bonus to prayer. We pray because the creator,
our God, commands it. We pray because he deserves to be praised.
I’ve got a challenge for you
this week. I want you to pray every day, and I don’t want you to ask for
anything. I want you to pray and just pray to give God glory. Just pray. Just
draw close to God.
In 1835, a woman named Charlotte
Elliott penned the words to a song with this in mind. She said, “just as I am,
without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me
come to thee, O Lamb of God I come, I come.” For those of you who don’t speak
King James English, she’s saying, “Here I am, God. I’m not asking for anything
more than what you’ve already given me in the sacrifice you have made. Just let
me draw near to you. Just let me be close to you. Hold me.
As we close with this song, I want
that to be the prayer of your heart. As Sally comes to play, would you all just
pray with me?
(Pray)
Sing
hymn 357 Just As I AM (v. 1,2,3,5)
Van Buren United
Pastor Dan Metzger