Well, we're coming back to the
passage that we read in Matthew chapter 6, and I know we looked
more broadly at chapter 6 last week, more towards the end of
the chapter, but now I want to look at prayer in a bit more
detail. We're in the middle of the Sermon
on the Mount, and in the Sermon on the Mount it begins with our
Lord Jesus Christ speaking about the sovereign grace of God and
the blessings of salvation, that God, in discriminating sovereign
grace, has blessed a people, a multitude that no man can number,
but a multitude that was chosen by Him before the beginning of
time. This is the clear teaching of the Scriptures, the unified
teaching of the Scriptures, that which was inspired by the Holy
Spirit of God through different writers down different ages,
yet exactly the same message. God is a God of sovereign grace,
and in sovereign grace He blesses people, He blesses some people.
He blesses them with the blessings of redemption, for what do we
need? We need the forgiveness of sins,
but sins cannot be forgiven by a holy God who doesn't change,
who cannot excuse and brush sin under the carpet. That sin must
be redeemed, it must be paid for, a purchase price must be
paid. and he has redeemed his people
from the curse of the law in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
God himself, come as their substitute to represent them, to bear their
sins, to pay its penalty, that the justice of God might be satisfied,
that propitiation might be made. that appeasement might be made,
that the just wrath of God against sin might be calmed by that which
Christ has done. And the Holy Spirit brings regeneration
to these people in time under the sound of the preaching of
the gospel of grace, for it is by the foolishness of preaching
that it pleased God to save those who believe. It isn't that their
belief saves them, it is that God who saves them, and it is
through the faith that he gives them. But he gives them that
faith in response to what they hear, which is the preaching
of the gospel of Christ. And so he goes on in chapter
6 to talk about alms, things you do good to others, prayer
in the relationship to God, and fasting, depriving of worldly
things that we might be more devoted to the things of God.
And those three things in this world are so subject to hypocrisy. Because if flesh has much to
do with it, then it will be nothing other than hypocrisy. That which
is genuine, that which is the genuine alms and prayer and fasting
of the genuine people of God, that only comes from the new
man who is born of the Spirit of God. Only comes from there. The one who believes God. The
one who, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the
truth, displays that they are amongst the elect of God, chosen
before the beginning of time. And that which is the genuine
fruit of the Spirit only comes from those into whom the Holy
Spirit has infused His life. Now this week, I want to focus
on prayer, and I've got four questions. Four questions. First
of all, what is prayer? Secondly, to whom do we pray? Thirdly, who is it that prays? And fourthly, for what should
we pray? These are very big questions.
They're far bigger than the time we have available. They're far
bigger than the expertise of the one who is speaking to you
about them now. My expertise, if any, is only
what the Holy Spirit teaches through God's Word. We have no
other place to go. It's not a matter of opinion.
It's not, what's your opinion about this? Well, mine is, and
I find that if I do, no, no, no, no, nothing to do with it.
What does the Word of God say? What saith the Lord to the law
and to the testimony? If they speak not according to
this word, there is no light, there is no truth in them. So
then, first of all, what is prayer? What is prayer? All I hope to
do is to sow a seed for further meditation. That's all. so a
seed for further meditation. What is prayer? Look at verse
6. When you pray, but thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy
closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father
which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward
thee openly. I think we can immediately see
from that that at its essence prayer is private, between the
regenerated soul of the child of God and the eternal God who
inhabits eternity. It's a personal thing. And it's
the regenerated soul, the regenerated spirit within a man or a woman,
it is that seeking to speak with God who is infinite. God who
is infinite, God, you know, we often mention, we look outside
on our garden, especially at this time of year in this country,
it's full of spring flowers and spring blossoms, though we put
the clocks forward one hour last night to British summertime,
but you wouldn't believe it with the weather, for the weather
systems have turned around and there's a very, very cold wind
blowing down from the Arctic this morning. Whenever we put
the clocks forward to say it's summer, usually, more often than
not, the weather brings a cold northerly wind down upon us,
and it's doing that, but nevertheless, the blossoms, the flowers, the
activity of the birds in the garden, it's all the leaves bursting
out on the trees, it's all speaking of this wonderful life, this
place just overflows with life, and this universe is the creation
of the living God who is over all, who is infinite, who is
the mind that has created all of these things. This notion
of evolution is absolute nonsense, an utter delusion, the biggest
delusion ever inflicted on man. Don't think it was started by
Charles Darwin, it was long, long, long, long, long before
that. people trying to say there is no God. Do you know why they
don't want a God? Because they don't like to retain God in their
knowledge. Why not? Because they're frightened of
God, because they're accountable to God. They're accountable to
Him, that's the thing. No. We seek the living God who
is over all, the infinite, overflowing fountain of all good. That's
our God. That's the God of the universe.
The infinite, overflowing fountain of all good. What's the chiefest
end of man? To know this God. to seek Him,
to know Him, to have fellowship, to have communion with Him. And
we approach in prayer with a desire to drink from that fountain,
to drink the blessed life water that is in that fountain. Prayer,
which is private between the soul, the saved soul, and the
infinite God, is seeking God's favour. God, be merciful to me,
a sinner. It's seeking His favour. It's
seeking His grace. Be gracious to me. It's seeking
His pity in my circumstances of the flesh, whatever situation,
it's seeking His pity. Be pitiful to this other person.
Show pity, show mercy. Why do we pray that? Because
God's Word says that our God is a God who delights in mercy. Therefore you have said, Lord,
you delight in mercy. Be merciful to me, as that man
cried by the wall of the temple. Be merciful to me, the sinner,
as if there was no other one. It's a cry, it's prayer, it's
a cry in distress to the one who only is able to help. A cry in distress, that's what
prayer is. We read it, didn't we read it
in that Psalm 25? A cry in distress. But prayer
is also, very, very much, prayer is also true worship. What do
I mean by that? Well in coming to God in prayer,
in humility of spirit, with reverence in our approach, we acknowledge
the worth, the worth of Him to whom we come. We acknowledge
that He is worthy. Is that not worship? We're acknowledging
that He alone is the one who is able, because He rules all
things in this world, in this universe. It is a coming to Him,
acknowledging that He alone is worthy. So we worship Him when
we come in prayer. It's a lifting up of the soul
from the normal worldly existence to God's holy, majestic presence. That's what we attempt to do
when we pray. When we come into His presence,
when we seek to pray, when we seek to communicate with the
God who is over everything that we see, It's lifting of the soul
from our worldly existence to God's holy, majestic presence. It's calling on His name. What
is it to call on the name of the Lord? You read in the early
chapters of Genesis, men began to call on the name of the Lord.
What did they do? Did they go like charismatics
do, with their eyes closed and their hands in the air, shouting
the name Jesus? No, no, no. It's a calling on
His name in that what we mean is calling upon his character.
calling upon the attributes of God, the one who alone is able
to answer our soul's needs. And as we come, we come into
the sanctuary. Oh, let's go down to the church
building to pray. No, no, no. The sanctuary is
not the church building. The sanctuary is not the little
chapel in the cathedral. The sanctuary is not anything
physical. The sanctuary is a spiritual
thing. The sanctuary is a spiritual
place. It's that place where we come,
in that closet, with the door shut, in secret, with our Father
who is in heaven. It's that communion with God. In fact, it's the anteroom to
heaven. The anteroom is the room you
go into before you go into the main room. It's the anteroom
of heaven. What is it, this sanctuary? It's
the Gospel. The sanctuary is the truly, truly,
you don't come to God by going into a physical building, you
come to God by coming in to the good of the gospel of His grace. The sanctuary is the gospel of
God's grace, and it's in Christ and Christ alone. There is no
other place where we know the grace of God than in Christ alone. He tells us in verse 9, he says,
after this manna pray, our Father, which art in heaven. He tells
his children to pray, Our Father, which art in heaven. He, who
is our Lord Jesus Christ on earth, taught his disciples to pray,
Our Father. And he also taught this, How
are we going to come to our Father? He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. Ah, but aren't there other ways?
No, there are not. Ah, but shouldn't we all be embracing
of diversity? There's diversity in religion
as well as everything else. Shouldn't we be accepting of
other people's ideas? No, we shouldn't, not in the
slightest, because our Lord Jesus Christ said that outside of this,
there is nothing other than condemnation. Our Father, how do I come? Through
Him who is the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to
the Father but by Him. If you would pray to God, you
can only come in the sanctuary, which is the gospel of the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that saving grace, that shed blood,
that propitiating blood, that blood which makes peace between
an offended God and sinners. That's the only way to come.
How do we see the truth of God? How do we see the glory of God?
God, who commanded light to shine in the darkness, has shined in
our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God. Where? In the face of Jesus Christ.
You won't see it anywhere else. You won't see it anywhere else. Nowhere else at all. He only
is the way. And we come to Him praying and
waiting patiently for His answer. as the praying soul thirsts after
God. You know the psalm that says,
my soul thirsts, it pants, you know the idea is that the stag
in the chase from the hounds, it gets so out of breath and
it's longing for a drink of that cool water, and its heart is
beating and its lungs are gasping, and the praying soul pants and
thirsts for the living God, for fellowship with the loving Father. The One who is over all is the
loving Father of His children. And because we pray our Father,
not distant God whom we daren't mention, We're taught to pray
Our Father, then we're assured of acceptance, are we not? Why
would He teach us to pray Our Father if it was not as children
coming to a loving Father? Hebrews 4.16, Let us therefore
come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy
and find grace to help in time of need. Because we're as children
coming to our Father. But whilst prayer is such a private,
personal act in the soul, it's also an act of fellowship. Look
in this prayer. Look from verse 11. Give us this
day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive
our debtors. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. You see, The prayer is taught
as a prayer of fellowship, together, but each one is a private pleading. You cannot have a gathering pray
for you. Each prayer must be that personal
prayer of the child of God to the Heavenly Father. Together,
every time we gather together for worship, we pray. I like
what Don Faulkner said, he said, people ask him, do you have prayer
meetings, meaning those meetings where pious groups gather together
and try and outdo each other. I'm sorry, I'm sounding a bit
cynical about this, but I've seen so much of it that deserves
cynicism. where we all try and out-compete
with the scriptures that we can quote. And Don says, no, we don't
have meetings like that. But he says, every time we gather
for worship, it's a prayer meeting, because it is. It's a coming
of the soul before the living God. We have prayer meetings
every time we gather for worship, and as we bow to the sound of
preaching, and the sound of the Word of God, and singing the
praise of God, and publicly voicing the prayers of the people of
God together, and saying Amen together. Now, that's what we
do, but not hypocritically. Not hypocritically. He says,
don't have vain repetitions, not vain repetitions, verse 7,
when you pray use not vain repetitions as the unbelievers do, for they
think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. They're
religious folk, they're religious folk but they believe the wrong
thing. They don't come to the Father by the Son. Don't use
vain repetitions as they do. They think their God will hear
them for their much speaking. No, no, don't come like that.
No, that's all just to visibly impress others. They go about
trying to inform God of what He already knows. We don't need
to be constantly informing God. of what he already knows. It
isn't a coming together to try to twist God's arm until he gives
us what we want. I saw a post in these days of
coronavirus from somebody I used to know many years ago up in
the north of England in a so-called church and it was calling that
if we all get together at a certain time and we have a night of praying
about this coronavirus that God will stop it and take it away
from us all. night vigils, you know, we don't
want this coronavirus, we want to get back to normality, please,
so what are we going to do? We'll all gang up on God and
we'll try and twist his arm up his back to make him take this
away, so that we can all get back to peace and normality,
which is what we really like. No, that's not true prayer. That
isn't prayer at all. That's pleading for the things
that the flesh wants. After all these things do the
Gentiles seek, he said. Let's not have night vigils and
show-off gatherings. I know people will say, ah, in
the Acts of the Apostles the disciples prayed all night when
Peter was put in jail. That's because they were special
days. In those days, at times, if a group is moved to gather
together to pray, to plead sincerely from the heart, then fine, go
ahead and do it. But none of this hypocritical
showing off to one another. No. What the Lord gives us here,
in what is called the Lord's Prayer, it isn't actually the
Lord's Prayer at all. It really isn't. If the Lord's
Prayer is anything, it would be John 17, or the prayers that
he uttered in the Garden of Gethsemane and in other places. But this
is the prayer for the disciples. Why would the Lord Jesus Christ,
if it was his prayer, say, forgive us our trespasses? Forgive us
our debts. He had no debts to be forgiven.
It's not his prayer in that sense. Nevertheless, it is the perfect
example of prayer. Is it not interesting that the
number of petitions in the prayer is seven? There are seven petitions. It's incredibly brief. It takes
no more than about 30 seconds to say it. Clearly, we can use
more words than we have here, but there's no broader sentiment
than what is expressed here. And I hope in coming weeks, maybe
just next week, I don't know, we'll see how it goes, to come
back to it and look at it in more detail. But for now, what
is prayer? Have I scratched the surface?
I suspect not. But maybe there's a seed from
further meditation. Secondly, to whom do we pray? To whom do we pray? He says,
pray to our Father. You see, so much praying is so
similar. I was listening to, there's a
programme I like on the radio, and I know I've said it many
times, Desert Island Discs, where some celebrity is asked to imagine
that they're cast away on a desert island and all they've got is
their eight favourite pieces of music. And it varies greatly
from person to person, as you might imagine. Well, the one
this last Friday morning on the radio, her starting piece was
George Harrison's My Sweet Lord. Do you remember that song? My
sweet Lord, I really want to know you Lord, I really want
to know you, my sweet Lord, don't worry I'm not going to try and
sing it here and now, but do you know something, As I was
listening to that I was thinking, that's just really no different
from the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel shouting, Baal we
cry to thee, Baal we cry to thee, O Baal hear us, Baal we cry to
thee, my sweet Lord, O I really want to know you. You cannot
know the true God outside of Jesus Christ. It's impossible. Your Hare Krishna, your gurus,
your mystics, none of them will tell you anything. Elijah was
the one who came with the true prayer. They all screamed and
cried and cut themselves. Baal, we cry to thee. And there
wasn't an answer. But Elijah, when it came to the
hour of the evening sacrifice, Lord God of Israel, Lord God
of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, this day let it be known that
thou art God and I am your servant. Let it be known. Show yourself. And the fire fell. The fire fell
and consumed the sacrifice, and the water, the barrels of water
they'd put in the trench, around about it. That's the true God. God of eternal covenant grace. Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, the
God of eternal covenant grace. The God of what? he had promised
to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob, Israel. The covenant of
promise, the covenant of redemption, particular redemption, of sovereign
grace, of saving a people from their sins, of there being peace
with God in shed blood. This is the God that he prayed
to and this is the true God. And he prayed to the true God
and the fire fell. All prayer to any other God,
however well-meaning it might be, is bound to fall on deaf
ears, for there is only the true God in our Lord Jesus Christ
who hears the prayers of his people. He's sovereign over all. This is the one to whom we pray. Think of this, the one who is
sovereign over all, the one who is the infinite source of life. There's no life elsewhere. The
one who is holy, holy, holy. The sinless angels veil their
faces from the piercing holiness of God. He's the one, listen,
listen, listen, he's the one who does not change. that it
sink in. God is the one who does not change. He's omnipotent. What can he
not do? Nothing. He can do anything that
he desires to do. All of his good pleasure. He
is omnipresent, where shall I flee from thy presence, says the psalmist.
I can't, there's nowhere I can go. Should I go down into the
deepest hell? You are there. Should I go, where
can I go? I can't go anywhere, anyway,
because God is omnipresent. Is there anything I can hide
from God? I hope he doesn't keep a record of what I did then,
or what I thought then. He's omniscient. There isn't
anything that God does not know by virtue of the fact that he's
the God of this universe. Do you have any idea how significant
this is? Do I really have any scratching
of the surface of how significant this is? Who is the God to whom
you seek to pray, to whom most religions? Who is the God to
whom you seek to pray? Is it this God, the one who is
sovereign over all, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient? How
do we invoke the true God? How do we get the ear of the
true God? If I can put it that way, only
in Christ. To whom do we pray? We pray to
God in Christ alone. Our Father, through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Our Father, through Jesus Christ
our Lord. We pray to God in Christ. How
do we know what He's like? As He's revealed in His Word.
Yes, He's revealed in creation, as I've already said. But without
the Word of God, without this book, and without growth in grace
and knowledge of it, as we're encouraged to do by Peter, growing
grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
without that, without that, we remain in darkness, without true
spiritual understanding. Christ is the only way to God. It is only in the Beloved that
any sinner is accepted. Do you want to be accepted with
God? You're a sinner. How are you
going to be accepted with God? Accepted in the Beloved, on the
grounds of who He is and what He's done, on the behalf of His
people, being made a curse for them. redeeming us from the curse
of the law by being made that curse for them. Praying to God
in Christ is praying to the true and living God. It's praying
to the king, the king, the sovereign, the king of God's kingdom. And
we pray with holy intelligence. Where do we get that? It's taught
by the Holy Spirit within. The Holy Spirit teaches us. Think
of the example of Asaph, I think it was, in Psalm 73. And the
first part of the psalm is a complaint about what hardship he suffered
compared with those who make no attempt to follow the living
God. They have nice, easy deaths, but he's been surrounded by trouble
on every side, every single day. And he was just about to slip.
He was just about to go away and chuck it all in and give
up on God. And then, what did he do? he
went into the sanctuary. He went into the temple. Now,
we don't have a temple, but we do. We have the Lord Jesus Christ. The temple pictured the Lord
Jesus Christ. The sanctuary pictured everything about the Lord Jesus
Christ and the gospel of his grace. This is where we come.
Come into the sanctuary of the gospel and the Lord Jesus Christ,
and there we see the truth. Asaph says, then understood I
their end. Then I understood what the lot
was of those who were outside of Christ. He comes into the
sanctuary, then he understands. That's what it is. That's what
it is. To whom do we pray? God, who is revealed in Christ
and Him alone. And we pray that more and more
He will show us more of who Christ is, of the glory of Christ. You can never lift up the Lord
Jesus Christ too high. You can never lift Him up too
high. Whatever you think, He's higher and more glorious. The wisdom The righteousness,
the sanctification and redemption that is in him is everything
that the needy sinner requires. So then, who is it that prays? Who is it that prays? Jesus,
you will notice, was teaching disciples here in this Sermon
on the Mount. We don't know how many there
were with him, but he was teaching disciples. Only those who truly
believe God. Only those who truly believe
God. they're the ones that truly pray.
How does anyone expect God to hear or respond to prayer from
those who refuse to believe what He has said? We listened to a
message the other night by Brother Chris Cunningham. Very good,
very simple. Do you believe God? But very
profound. The trouble with almost all religion,
the trouble with it all is that they don't believe God. Most
Christianity, you say, that's funny. Well, how can you say
that? Most Christianity does not believe God. The churches
all around us, the Anglican church in this country, the Catholic
church, the Methodists, whatever you call them, the Presbyterians,
wherever they are, they don't believe God. They don't believe
him. You say, they do believe in God.
No, they don't. They believe there's a being called God, but
they don't believe him. They don't believe what he said
in this book. don't believe what he said about sin, they don't
believe that, no, no, no. They don't believe what he said
about salvation from sin, the price of salvation, and the accomplishment
of salvation. They don't believe what he said
in this book about the extent of redemption. who it is that
Christ died for. No, they don't believe that.
They don't believe what he says in this book about the triumph
of God's kingdom and the frustration of the things of this world.
They don't believe anything that he said. Well, you say, what
about the unbeliever who's seeking? He's not yet a believer and he's
seeking. He's saying that his prayer is not heard. Do you remember
that man who said, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. That's
the prayer of a believer, isn't it? He may not know the full
extent of the truth at this stage, but the prayer he prays is to
one who he alone believes is able to answer that prayer. Lord,
I believe, help thou mine unbelief. You alone are the one who can
help me. You alone are the one who can give me the gift of faith
to believe you. You're the only one who can help.
That's the prayer of a true believer. The prayer of one coming to one
whom he believes alone is able to help him, to relieve his condition. A lot of people in religion,
they have all sorts of different doctrines. They believe different
things about different things, but you know, they have their
ecumenical movements and the combined churches of this place
or that place or the other place. They all do their own things
in their own special way. But just every now and then,
they can all get together for prayer. At least we disagree
about no end of things, but at least we can all get together
for prayer. They think that prayer is the
lowest common denominator. You people who are taught at
school in my days, do you remember lowest common denominators? Well,
they believe that prayer is the lowest common denominator of
fellowship. We can disagree, we don't have
to agree about election, we don't have to agree about sovereignty,
we don't have to agree about this, that and the other, but
at least we can all together pray together. No you can't,
no you can't. I remember some years ago the
church up the road where we used to go decided that they needed
to have big prayer meetings that were open to anybody to come
and anybody could pray and I remember going to the first one somewhat
reluctantly and there was a woman there, dear woman no doubt, but
she was a spiritualist And the door was open for her to come
in and to pray, because it was the lowest common denominator
that we could all agree on. And there's this spiritualist
with no knowledge of the truth, or of the gospel of grace, or
of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, coming into that place
and reckoning to approach the same God that we were through
her verbal prayers. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It's not through that. No, it
isn't. Those who believe the truth are those who pray. Let
me give you some examples. Abraham prayed. God revealed
the truth to him and he believed it. Abraham believed God and
it was accounted to him for righteousness. Moses believed God. Moses, the
friend of God. Moses believed God. David believed
God, a man after God's own heart. How do I know he prayed? Look
at the Psalms, the vast majority written by David. What are the
vast majority of them? They're prayer in one form or
another. Solomon, we have his prayer recorded
at the dedication of the temple. Hezekiah, basically a good king
who went off the rails a bit towards the end of his life,
but nevertheless, his prayer was in accordance with the will
of God. Even when he prayed for extra
life, he prayed in accordance with the will of God, for God
had promised that they should not depart an heir from the throne
of David. And Hezekiah said, you can't
let me go yet because there is not an heir. And so God gave
him an extra 15 years. Daniel prayed to God on the basis
of what? He read the scriptures. He read
the prophecy of Jeremiah. The 70 years are up and he prayed.
I'm sure he prayed more than that. Nehemiah. didn't pray a
great long prayer. No, not a great long prayer,
hoping to be heard for his much speaking. Lord, give me wisdom
now. He's about to experience the
wrath of the king. And he sends a prayer up to heaven
and it's answered in that moment. Nehemiah prayed, Elijah, as I've
already said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel. The Jerusalem
church prayed in those early days of the church when Peter
was imprisoned The Jerusalem church prayed. Paul prayed, the
sign that he was no longer Saul of Tarsus seeking to kill the
Lord's people. He prayeth, he prayed. Jesus
the man prayed. Our God made man prayed to his
Father. The disciples are exhorted always
to pray. Jesus in Luke 18 verses 1 to
8 told them that they ought always to pray. In Matthew 7, if you
just look on a few verses, Matthew 7, 7 and 8, He says, ask Pray, ask, and it shall be given
you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened
unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh
findeth, and to him that knocketh shall it be opened. Jesus taught
us to pray and assured us of answers to that prayer. Romans
12 verse 12, be instant in prayer, be it an attitude of life, as
it was with Nehemiah. Whatever the moment of the day
in your work or whatever you're doing, be instant in prayer. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5
verse 17 we're told to pray without ceasing. In other words, it's
not that we are so engaged in prayer that we can't communicate
with the world and people around us. No, not at all, but it's
as if we're swimming in an ocean of communication with the living
God. James 5 verse 16 assures us that
the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Who is it that prays? True believers.
For what can we pray? And I'll be quick. I remember
again at the church up the road where we once were, and we had
a visiting preacher, and I know some of you will remember this,
and the title of the message was Prayer Works. And the guy,
I'm serious, really, this really did happen. People will attest
to this. He said, prayer works. How do I know? I prayed for a
swimming pool. And do you know, the Lord moved
us to a house where there was a swimming pool. I got a swimming
pool. Prayer works. That was fundamentally the basis
of it. What do you pray for? Well it's
determined by what you know about whom you pray to. Knowing to
whom we pray determines what we pray. So knowing to whom we
pray, we won't pray seeking carnal, fleshly, worldly things, but
God, fellowship with God. the honour and glory of his name,
the coming and triumph of his kingdom, his glory, the furtherance
of his cause in this fallen world, with his will to be done on earth
as it is in heaven. True prayer is addressing the
Sovereign of heaven and earth who governs all in accordance
with his eternal good pleasure, whose counsel stands forever
unchanged. So we pray, asking for grace
to submit our judgment to His judgment, to show us His way,
not ours. Prayer is not us trying to impose
our will on God. It's not us ganging up to twist
God's arm, as it were, up His back so that He must give us
what we want fleshly in this world. No. The way we must pray
is as 1 John 5.14 says, if we ask anything according to His
will. Hear that? According. We need
to seek to know what is His will. If we ask according to His will,
He hears us. We need to increasingly grow
in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
so that thereby our prayers are more conformed to His will. God's
Spirit works through His Word in His people's hearts, instructing
them to pray in accordance with His Word and His will. And when
we can't express it, we have the confidence that the Spirit
of God intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
So, it's not that our prayers change God's will so that it's
our will and not His that is done, no. Remember what I said
earlier, God is the overflowing fountain of all good. He is the
fountain of all spiritual living water. We don't approach with
our full cup, seeking to pour anything of ourselves into that
fountain. No, we come empty, seeking to
be filled. So pray that God will show you
more of his will. and conform your desires to that
will. We all need to pray this, we're
all guilty of not doing it. Don't pray for carnal prosperity,
for green traffic lights all the way, for children's exam
success. I remember at another church
when I was a teacher in the 1970s and I'd go along to the prayer
meeting And when it came to children's examination time, oh, all of
the prayer requests, oh, please pray for little Johnny that he'll
come out with a full set of A-stars and he will then get into the
best university and become a really rich, professional person like
we want him to be, like all the rest of us are. No, no, no, that's
not the true prayers of the people of God. That's just asking for everything
to go what you think is the right way for you and yours, rather
than submitting to the will of God. Why do we not get so often
what we pray for? James tells us, James 4 verse
3, he says, ye ask and receive not, because why you ask amiss
wrongly, that you may consume it upon your lusts. They're things
that you just lust after, that's why you don't get them. This
is what the Gentiles seek after, verse 32 of chapter 6, for after
all these things do the Gentiles seek, but your heavenly Father
knows what you need. and He'll give you what you need,
your Heavenly Father knows that. Sometimes flesh, and I say this
with as much reverence as I can, but even the flesh of Jesus,
the man, This is a mystery. But even the flesh of Jesus the
man longs for a different way. Did he not pray in the Garden
of Gethsemane when he sweat as it were drops of blood at the
prospect of being made sin? Matthew 26 verse 39, Oh my Father,
If it be possible, let this cup, what cup? The cup of suffering,
the cup of being made the sin of his people, that he might
bear the curse of that sin and thereby redeem them from the
curse of the law. Let this cup pass from me nevertheless,
not as I will, but as thou wilt. Even that most holy flesh, in
its human frailty, Ask that if it be possible that cup pass,
nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. So can we pray
for our unsaved loved ones, for recovery from sickness, from
whatever else If it be possible, but not my will, but thine, be
done. And teach me to submit to your
will. Heaven, you know, is an ending
intimate communion between God and his redeemed people. This
is what we read. In effect, it's prayer. It's infinite, unending prayer,
but without any of the conflicts of the sin and flesh that plague
us now, in perfect union with Him. Is that not a glorious prospect
to which we look forward? Amen.