How To Pray II: Blessings

 Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Pastor Harry on “How To Pray (Part Two)” (Matthew 6:7-8; Luke 18:1-8; Luke 11:2-4). The sermon and the whole service can be watched on our WIC YouTube Channel:

 

I want to focus today on the words of Jesus Himself. There’s a remarkable consistency in Jesus’ own words, which is not fully appreciated. If you read a Bible that has Jesus’ words in red, you might well be surprised by what you read – especially in two main areas: Jesus’ moral teaching, most of which is in His so-called Sermon on the Mount (in other words, Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7); and His teaching on how people are saved (most of that is in John’s Gospel). In fact, both a lot of His moral teaching and His teaching on salvation actually go against what is taught in many churches. Check it out for yourselves and draw your own conclusions. Jesus and Christian religion are not the same.

 

Today I want to say more about Jesus’ words on prayer: we only touched on it last week, and there is so much more. This is important because prayer is so important for the well-being of the church. A church that prays will stay together and grow. If worshippers pray hardly at all or never, they will – after a time – fall away, or create their own interest group, but it’s no longer the main praying church, which is moving forwards.

 

Jesus gives us Luke’s short form of the “Lord’s Prayer” as a model prayer, in today’s second reading, mentioning elements that prayer should contain: praise, hope, prayer for essentials and for forgiveness, and prayer for strength. But Jesus also provides other illustrations of how we should pray. He tells us two stories, or parables, which make exactly the same point – but with rather strange examples. We looked at one of them last week: the story of the man who goes to his friend’s house at midnight to ask for bread, and the friend isn’t too pleased. The other parable is today’s story of the widow who keeps pestering the unjust judge for justice. Jesus’ message is exactly the same in both cases. Like I said last week: don’t give up praying; be constant and persistent; and in the end your request will be granted – with the proviso that God will give you what you really need, rather than what you think you want.

 

But something worries me a little about the prayer examples that Jesus gives. The characters who are being asked to do something are portrayed negatively. In the story of the man who asks his friend for bread, the friend isn’t at all compassionate, but just wants to get rid of him – he’s selfish! And in today’s story, the judge is described as “neither fearing God nor caring about people”. He’s totally hard-hearted, and shouldn’t be a judge at all! So I wouldn’t be surprised if many people come to the conclusion that God is described by Jesus as being hard to deal with; angry with us; unfair; uncaring; and just plain selfish. It’s easy to get the wrong impression that God has to be nudged and prodded to get anything out of Him at all.

 

Some people might even conclude that Jesus is a good guy, but God is a bad guy! So they could think that Jesus can’t be God, because God is cruel: especially if you look around and think that God is doing nothing to make this world a better place. In fact, He seems to be raising up crazy rulers to kill us all off! So in both those stories, the person with the need devises the same strategy to get their answer from a difficult person. What’s the strategy: “Wear him down! Wear him down!”

 

But: if we ourselves come up with such a praying tactic, what happens to our prayer? Surely it becomes mechanical? Doesn’t it cease to be spontaneous prayer made in faith, but becomes just another “good work” to get what you want? A mere tactic? Let me illustrate this with two scenarios, because it’s important for us to know how to pray; and people sometimes ask me questions like “should I pray every day at the same time?” And “how long should I pray for?” It’s clear that we have an issue with prayer.

 

So in the first scenario, a boy wants his father to buy him a bike. He thinks of his dad as a sort of machine: someone to give him what he wants. So he works out a plan. He decides to ask his father every day to buy him a bike, until the father gives in. After a while, the father has had enough, and buys the bike. The boy is happy – not just because of the bike, but also because his method worked! He’s pleased with his own “good works” in succeeding; and he praises himself for achieving it!

 

In the second scenario, the boy realizes that he can’t force his dad to do anything; so he doesn’t even try that approach – he loves and respects his dad too much to come with such a tactic. In fact, he has no method. He just asks his father about the bike whenever he feels spontaneously moved to do so. And when the father finally buys him the bike, the son is grateful, and thinks: “What a wonderful dad I’ve got!” All the praise goes to his father – not to himself.

 

Dear Friends, that’s how God wants us to pray: persistently, not forgetting our request; but at the same time not making a plan out of it, because then the glory goes to us, not to God. The same is true of the “babbling” that Jesus condemns in our opening verse. Many people go on and on when they pray – it’s their strategy for catching God’s attention, as if He were a dozy old man. God has perfectly good hearing. But He wants our spontaneity when we pray – not our strategy. So no tactical plan is needed. He just wants us to turn to Him as often as possible with the spontaneous faith and innocence of a child.

 

Evan Roberts was the man God used to initiate the great Welsh Revival of 1904-5, which saw millions of people all over the world come to Christ, and led to the establishment of the Pentecostal Church in America. Study the rich history and thought of spiritual Christianity – don’t just be content to read the Bible! Make your faith stronger with knowledge! Evan Roberts stated four main principles essential for revival – the so-called “Four Keys Of Revival”: 1) Confess all your known sins to God; 2) Remove any doubtful habits in your life; 3) Publicly confess your faith in Jesus as your Saviour; and 4) Obey the Spirit promptly.

 

It’s this last one that I want to emphasize today: “Obey the Spirit promptly”. Our prayer times may sometimes be short – but they should be spontaneous. If you’re a born-again Christian, you’ll certainly feel the need for immediate prayer coming on from time to time – sometimes in inconvenient situations. Evan Roberts says: If you can, stop what you’re doing straight away and pray – because even if you wait 5 or 10 minutes, that spontaneous feeling will pass. Make your prayer short and sharp – and it’ll be like a sharp knock on the sleeping friend’s door, or a very emphatic intrusion – by the widow – on the corrupt judge’s peace of mind.

 

I hope these guidelines on how to pray will encourage us all. The important rule is to be focused on God all the time – not on ourselves. To that end, let’s sing: “Be Thou My Vision”. Amen.