
A few weeks ago, we spoke about hearing from God, and we see that God will speak to us. If we are His children or His enemy, He will speak to us. So how does God speak to us? There are a lot of ways He does, and we will explore those methods over the next few weeks. Today, we are going to cover a method, that is far most vast than I can do it justice in one lesson. We will be discussing prayer. There is a lot here, so I am going to limit this to 5 points to try and finish today.
Prayer is Time with God
We see that it is essential for us to spend time with God, and when we pray, that is a way of spending time with Him. We see Jesus was an example of this and He would do this frequently.
16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray. —Luke 5:16
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. —Mark 1:35
Those are a couple of verses that let us know it was important enough to Jesus to make time with God and pray. Jesus would start His day with God by intentionally spending time in prayer in isolation. Why? First, this allowed Him not to be distracted. When you are changing the world, there might be a few people who are trying to speak to you, but He would make sure to get away so He would spend time with God so Jesus could speak to Him and listen to the Lord. Jesus did not just wait for a convenient time, He would make intentional time to spend with God. Do you make intentional and uninterruptible time with God?
We have a God who loves us and wants a relationship with us. From the beginning, God walked with Adam and Eve, and after the fall of mankind, He continues to pursue us. Think of your spouse, or your family, or a friend, if you don’t spend time with them how healthy is your relationship? This is nothing new, and you have probably heard this before, but today I ask you to check in with God and ask Him, am I spending enough time with you?
Now, here is the other side of that coin. Just like any relationship, if you only spend time with each other for a fixed amount of time once a day, that isn’t the greatest relationship. We need to set time aside for prayer and to be with God, but we also are called to pray all the time.
Pray without ceasing, —1 Thessalonians 5:17
Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. —Romans 12:12
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.* —1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
We see that we should be in constant dialogue with God. This helps us keep our attention on Him, and to not get distracted like we often… oh I like those shoes, where did you get those? Sorry, back to the sermon.
We need to pray constantly and be in constant dialogue. This goes to the next point of talking to God.
Prayer is Talking to God
When we pray we are talking to God. To say something, we first need to know what we are going to say, and our God wants us to talk to Him about everything. We see Jesus share a prayer in Matthew
39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” —Matthew 26:39
We see here Jesus expressing His request and His desire, but always must submit to the Lord’s will. Two things here.
First, God wants to know our needs, our desires, our dreams, our hopes, our opinions. He wants to hear from us, and yes, that even means when we are hurt, angry, upset. He loves us and will walk with us in all of it. He wants all of us, and we can’t overwhelm Him, we can’t do anything that will make Him not love us, He is so much more than we can fathom. He wants all of you, and is willing to go through all of your mess with you.
Second, we see that Jesus submits to God’s way, not His own. In our own lives we are called to submit our goals, desires, dreams, hopes to the Lord. We want the things we want for both good and bad reasons sometimes, but in all things we must submit to His good and perfect way. His timing is perfect, His provision is perfect, His will is perfect.
We are to tell our problems and share our anxieties.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. —Philippians 4:6
Why does He tell us this? Because He can do something about them, He walks with us, and He shows us no matter what, He can deal with this.
Story?
Prayer is Listening to God
When we pray, this is not just a one way street, we are to listen too. He will speak to us, and guide us, but the question is will we listen?
Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.
This should be the desire of our heart. Teach me your ways Lord. His way is good and perfect. Grant it, we don’t always like it, but that doesn’t change the fact that His ways are good and perfect. —Psalm 25:4-5
We saw last week how God literally spoke to people, but we also saw how God used others to speak to us as well. We will cover both of these more in a future sermon, but for today’s purpose, we know God will talk to us. He has so much for us, and He guides us as His children.
Moses, Samuel, Peter, Paul, Joshua, David, Jonah, Annais, the list just keeps going, will we listen to Him
I am sure you have heard this before. We need to talk to God, and we need to listen to Him too. I don’t think anyone in this room doesn’t understand that for us to be like Christ, and have our lives transformed, we need to talk to Him, and listen to Him, but the question I ask is how is that going? Are you giving Him the opportunity to talk to you? Are you listening to that still small voice? What is He saying to you?
Prayer is Giving to God
Prayer is a time we give to God. I think this is important because we think this is just time for conversation, but really this is where we give out thanks and praise to God, and also where we give Him our burdens.
We give God thanks and praise. We are called to do this, and this is not just done through singing songs, in our prayers we worship and glorify God too. Jesus instructed His disciples on how to pray, and notice the first part is praising God.
9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name. —Matthew 6:9
Father in heaven and hallowed is your name are praises to God. When you read the psalms, we see the authors praise and glorify God in His many attributes. In our prayers we should be in awe of Him, proclaim His holiness, His righteousness, we should praise Him for His faithfulness, His strength, His gloriousness. We should adore the God of love, the God who saves, the God who provides, the God who heals, the God of miracles. Prayer is where worship God, and in doing so we learn of His character, and as we do, He demonstrates these qualities to us.
Prayer is where we give God our problems. This is where we lay them down at His feet as we are instructed to do so.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. —Philippians 4:6
Wait, didn’t I already use this verse for another point? Can you use the same verse for multiple points in a sermon? Well I am going to do that here. Here we are told to give God our requests and our anxieties. God wants to know your burdens, He wants us to give them to Him. Why?
Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. —1 Peter 5:7
We see that God wants our anxieties because He cares for us. He loves us, and He deals with problems. He doesn’t ask us to tell Him so we know of our problems, or to share them so we feel better by talking about them, or because He will point out that we made the mistake so we have to deal with it. No, He wants us to share our burdens so that He can take them from us.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. —Matthew 11:28
He takes away the sin of the world, because He loves us, and because He can handle all the problems that we and the world have. When we give Him our burdens, He gives us somethings back too.
Prayer is Receiving from God
When we pray, we also receive from God. Let’s read Matthew 11:28 again.
We see God gives us rest from our burdens. We see a few times that God gives us things when we pray.
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. —Hebrews 4:16
When we draw near to God, we receive mercy and grace. When we pray, this is a time we draw near to God, and He will give us things back.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. —James 5:16
When we sin, we sin against somebody and God. When we sing against a brother or sister, we need to make that right, or when we sin against no one except yourself, in both cases we sin against God. When we confess our sins, we can then heal from them. In our prayers we are called to confess our sins, and this helps us begin to see things through God’s view, and not our own.
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, —Matthew 5:44
That is not our normal view is it? We are called to love our enemies, and pray for them. Going to God in prayer is important to receive His view, His desire, His will for what we will live out.
To be able to hear from God we need to spend time with Him, we need to talk to Him, listen to Him, give Him ourselves both the good and the bad, and receive His love, guidance, and truly receive Him to be able to live our lives for Him. Why would we want to hear from God? Because He made us with a plan, purposefully, and that is we are a part of the story of life. You and I are not the main character in the story. You and I are side characters to Him. We need to follow Him and change our lives to be a life that glorifies our most amazing God.