PRAY LIKE WE NEVER PRAYED BEFORE

INTRODUCTION

A Prayer you may need to pray: “So far today. I am doing all right. I have not gossiped, lost my temper, been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or self-indulgent. I have not whined, complained, cursed, or eaten any chocolate. I have charged anything on my credit card. But I will be getting out of bed in a minute, and I think that I will really need your help then.”

I have been thinking about our church prayer life. NCCBA Seminar with Dennis Henderson, brother Daniel wrote a book Fresh Encounters. Wrote about this subject in my Pastor’s Pen in June. I am going on a CB Prayer Retreat in September. I have more to say than time, hit the highlights, the complete text will be on the website.

I want to do some thinking out loud from the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 Give a new insight into a familiar text, and ponder some issues that make us go “Hmmm...” “I wonder” “What if we do this...”

The American Church has changed a lot in the past 50 years: worship, education, evangelism methods, Bible translations, we have more resources than ever before. But we have one area of tremendous weakness. Corporate Prayer — Christians praying together for each other. Prayer is often the weak link in our chain of faith. Churches die, churches lose momentum, and revival fails to come because God’s people don’t pray very well together.

We need a revival in prayer: Psalm 80:18: “...Revive us, and we will call upon Your name...” How can we pray for effectively? Some new proposals from Lord’s Prayer/Disciples Prayer/Model...

1. A Revival to Worship Focused Prayer

• vs. 9, 10, 13b. The Lord’s Prayer/Disciples Prayer has 7 lines by periods, 4 are about God, 3 about us. Over half of the prayer is worshiping God.


• Prayer begins “Our Father.” Ends with “Your...glory forever.”


• Prayer is about God. He is worthy. Thus spend more time in worship first and last. The stronger our relationship with God our Father the more our times of prayer are about deepening that relationship, fellowship.


• Times with my dad, more about just talking, than making requests.


• There is a place for requests, plenty of Bible references to “Let your requests be made known unto God” (Phil. 4:6). But in the model prayer it is first a worship focused prayer not a Request focused Prayer.


• “Worship based prayer begins with and is fueled by God and His character, not our needs. It is a prayer meeting where singing, spontaneous Scripture reading and prayers are focused on who God is...When we limit ourselves to seeking His hand, we may miss His face” (Daniel Henderson, pgs. 31, 88).


• In the model prayer the statements about God: Focus on His Person “Our Father who is in heaven.” His Name: “Hallowed (Holy) is Your Name.“ His Rule: “Your kingdom come.” His Will “Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” and His Glory “For Yours is the...”


• WHAT IF... We refocus our church prayers and/or create new occasions where we simply worship God in prayer. Use Scripture and music. Prayer meetings more of a concert of prayer, worship services.


• WHAT IF... we spend more time saying: “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power...” Rev. 4:11a

2. A Revival in Corporate Personal Prayer

• vs. 11-13a Pronouns are “Our” “us” “we.” Not “me” “my” “I” “mine”


• We have personalized the passages about corporate prayer in our individualist American mindset. The emphasis in the NT is not on you praying by yourself, but you and other believers praying together in any context with any number.
  
  Gene Getz: “More is said in Acts and the Epistles about corporate prayer, corporate evangelism, and corporate Christian maturity and growth than about the personal aspects of these Christian disciplines. Don’t misunderstand. Both are intricately related. But the personal dimensions of Christianity are difficult to maintain and practice consistently unless they grow out of a proper corporate experience on a regular basis.” (Quote by Gene Getz from book Praying for One Another quoted in Maximum Impact Prayer, page 7)


• “And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31) Long way from today boring!


• James 5:13-18 “Pray for one another” = “Pray together all of you for one another.” “If any is suffering among you...If any is sick among you call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him...”


• We did that with Vonda Lee a month ago. WE NEED TO DO THAT MORE OFTEN.


• I WONDER: Our Church Prayer List is long, most are for extended family and friends, and the requests for those “among you” are fewer and mostly short term requests. I wonder how we could improve it??? We need to start over, tie extended family and friends to church family. Rotate perpetual requests. Condense, keep fresh. We do believe in the power of prayer. The key in the power is not numbers who prayer, but righteous people make prayers effective (James 5:16)


• I WONDER: Prayer Meetings. Really suffering in America - many reasons. I puzzle over Matt. 6:8 “your Father knows what you need before you ask Him” Thanks to a college Professor I wonder: During church prayer times we talk about requests out loud together, then we bow our heads, close our eyes and tell God what we just told each other. Since God knows everything and is everywhere, wasn’t God already listening? Why are we repeating ourselves? If “Pray without ceasing” = always have attitude of prayer, isn’t our sharing of requests and our concern - already prayer? Surely something can be improved????


• Why are church prayer meetings falling on hard times? Epidemic of business, lack of commitment to prayer, they are boring, they are about other people and seem like gossip, most of us don’t like to talk about us and thus keep our problems private, redundancy when we tell the requests to each other then verbalize them to God, and we don’t realize the power of prayer. The power is not to change God, but to change us.


• Sometimes I think our prayer meetings are presumptuous: We give God information He already has, and then we tell the Sovereign Lord what to do. Thus the need to be worship focused, and pray for His will - James 4:15.


• I WONDER: According to the Model Prayer, there are only three requests, but our exercise of them is rather limited:
  1. v. 11 We do our daily needs - mainly for health, but other needs.
  2. v. 12 How about praying for the ability to forgive others? Should improve this, unresolved conflicts. Pray for unity, spiritual health.
  3. v. 13a How about to help us to escape temptation, to be kept from sin? Should do this too, in a sinful world. Spiritual warfare prayer.


• WHAT IF: we would fuller use this model prayer, we have a limited its scope. We need to broaden and deepen our requests in our worship.

3. A Revival To Kingdom Prayer

• v. 10, 13b. We need to pray for big things - God’s Kingdom on earth, big picture things, beyond our temporary health needs to God’s eternal Kingdom. Our prayers too small, they can and should be much bigger.


• Dawson Troutman: “‘What is the biggest thing you have asked for this week?’ I remind them that they are going to God, the Father, the maker of the Universe. The One who holds the world in His hands. What did you ask for? Did you ask for peanuts, toys, trinkets, or did you ask for continents? I want to tell you, it is tragic! The little itsy-bitsy things we ask of our Almighty God. Sure nothing is too small - but also nothing is too big.” (Rural Church Renewal, 5)


• Fall of the Soviet Union came because believers in their underground churches prayed for their nation. In 1959 Billy Graham visited Russia and prayed in the Lenin Stadium for an opportunity to preach. 24 years later in 1984 and 28 years later in 1988 he was invited to preach in a few churches, but in 1992 he preached in the overflowing Olympic Stadium “I couldn’t help but think back to the prayer I had uttered...as a tourist in 1959, asking God for an opportunity to preach the Gospel in that nation. Over 30 years had passed, but now, beyond doubt, God had answered our prayer.” (Just as I am, 556)


• WHAT IF: We pray kingdom requests. BIG. Start with our church, go out our communities, beyond to our country, then way out to our world. Nothing is too small, but nothing is too big either. What kingdom requests can we in Colfax pray? Pray BIG! Add BIG requests to list!

CONCLUSION

I am saying three ways to reform, revive, revolutionize our church prayer life found in the simple Lord’s Prayer:

1. To become worship focused.
2. Pray together for one another.
3. Pray beyond us to kingdom requests.

Acts 1:14, the example of the disciples themselves practicing what Jesus taught in the Model Prayer, an example to us of what we must be:

“These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer”

Can we do that? Great things are happening here. Yet, the lack of following this Model Prayer is one great thing holding us back. So what is next? I challenge you to think and pray these issues from the Model Prayer. Ask: “I WONDER?” “WHAT IF?” Talk with me and other church leaders.

Extra Notes

The “prayer closet” or “inner room” of Matthew 6:6 is not a small cubical in your home where you go by yourself, instead the Jewish idea behind it is an inner chamber for the family to gather together, or the King to receive his audiences. So the Bible clearly stressing praying TOGETHER, and Jesus stressed it in the prayer example for the disciples to do TOGETHER.

Prayer has become the time we give God information and tell God what to do.

Listen to your prayers. How much time do you spend in worship and how much time do you spend in requests? If the answer is you spend most of your time in requests, may I challenge you to reverse that emphasis and spend more time in worship. To do so, you can use the Bible (Psalms are great), use a hymnal or a chorus book - you can expand your prayer life with those great prayer tools. Stress the greatness of God. Jesus stressed that emphasis in the prayer He taught His disciples to pray - it all about God - “Your name, Your kingdom, Your will, Your power, and Your glory.”

We need a revival of prayer. I use term Revival (a Biblical Term), can also use Reformation (Historical term), or Revolution (counter cultural term). The idea is we need to radically change our church prayer times.

Study of Broader Context: Matthew 6:5-15

Why Pray?

A. Some wrong reasons to pray from the text:

1. Seeking public affirmation by people. 6:5 - Hypocrites (Pharisees) love to pray in public and sound important. Today there are some, but most don’t like to pray out loud in public.


2. Using Meaningless repetition. 6:7 saying the same things over and over again “Here us when we pray.” Praying the same list day in day out.


3. Giving God information. 6:8 - God already knows our needs.
• Most of our prayers are: Giving God information (that he already has), then telling God what to do (like we can change the mind of the sovereign of the universe). 6:32; Psalm 38:9


4. With an unforgiving heart 6:14-15. Here is a text that speaks to one of the three requests in the Model Prayer we don’t talk about often enough. If we are unforgiving, our prayers are unanswered. That is a touch condition.

B. The right reasons to pray: “Our Father who is in heaven...” 6:9

1. Because God is worthy. He is the Almighty God, Master of Universe.
• He has a hallowed name - it is holy, set apart. Worthy of respect.
• He receives all the glory 6:13b Prayer is about God, not about us.


2. We are given the honor to commune with our Father in Heaven.
• Prayer is our declaration of our dependence upon Him. “Our” 275 times in NT we are instructed to speak to God as “Father.”
• Prayerlessness is our declaration of independence from God. If we don’t pray we miss fellowship, hearing His words, knowing His will.
• Psalm 95:1,2 “Come into His presence”


3. Prayer is commanded in the Scripture.
• Luke 11:1 - Jesus instructs His disciples, this is best called the Disciples Prayer. Plus the saints prayed, Apostles instructed us, and many examples are given: Such as David, Nehemiah, Daniel, Jesus, Apostle Paul 1 Thess. 5:17 “Pray without ceasing.”
• These three reasons are the same reasons for which to honor our parents. A foretaste of two weeks, the longer our relationship with our parents the less it is about asking for stuff and the more about relationship.
• Prayer requests are requests not demands. We can claim the promises of God, yet “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” James 4:15 “If the Lord wills...”

Prayer is the life line, the oxygen supply to heaven for our spiritual life. We have to pray as individuals, and as a body of believers. It is to be as natural as breathing, as essential as eating, and as desirous as human love.

Prayer has become a shopping list of needs. Our requests are temporary, God’s glory is permanent. The Bible tells us we can pray for our needs and the others, there is plenty of Biblical evidence. But let us not neglect the other elements in the Model Prayer. Prayer is to give us a taste of heaven, where we will worship Him and fellowship with the saints, and we won’t ask anything.

We can ask on earth because we have needs here, but let us learn to worship greater. For God is worthy right now. We have made prayer too much work, not enough worship.