Here is a snippet from the early parts of a topical sermon I recently preached at my home church, Redemption Hill Church in Whittier, California. The title of the sermon is Growing My Prayer Life.
Today I want to focus on helping you develop a deeper and more consistent prayer life. Most of the things I intend to share today will be practical. But let me begin with a few doctrinal truths. Some of the most important things you need to know about prayer have to do with who God is. So let me review a few of these to make sure we’re orienting correctly.
Strong
God is powerful. According to the Bible, He is all-powerful. He can do absolutely anything except deny his own holy and righteous character. When we ask God to do something, he is strong enough to do it.
During my last year of high school, Rabbi Harold Kushner released a New York Times bestselling book called Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. He couldn’t fathom how God could be both good and loving, on the one hand, and all powerful on the other. His solution? God is loving but not all powerful.
I imagine that he didn’t pray very much—who wants to pray to a God who isn’t strong enough to answer your prayer?
Caring
God is interested in and cares about even the smallest details of our lives.
Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount describes God like a loving father who wants to give good gifts to his children.
If a child asks for a fish, will he give him a snake?
If a child asks for some bread, will he give him a stone?
If a child asks for an In-N-Out Burger, will he give him a warmed-up frozen patty that’s been sitting for four hours under a heat-lamp at a convenience store?
Jesus says: if you know how to give good gifts to your children, much more does your Father in heaven.
Sovereign
That is, he’s the boss. We don’t get to tell him what to do.
And according to Ephesians 1:11, he is the one who orders all things after the counsel of his own will.
That’s not the way we often approach prayer, but if you’re going to make any progress in prayer, you must remember that God is the boss, not you.
Relational
God is and always has been relational—even before he issued the decree to create the world and fill it with people. One of the profound implications of God being Trinity is that he is and always has been committed to relationship as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
One implication for us is that praying isn’t transactional; it’s based upon relationship, as Pastor Robert talked a lot about two weeks ago.
And while I’m mentioning our Triune God:
Jesus—the second person of the Trinity
The basis for our praying is the access we’ve received through Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection from the dead on our behalf.
Romans 5:1: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus, through whom we have received access by faith into this grace in which we stand.”
We would have no other access to God’s throne room without this.
Hebrews 4:16 adds, “Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace to receive mercy and grace to help in time of need.”
The Holy Spirit—the third person of the Trinity
Empowers and guides our praying
Romans 8:26-27 explains that we often don’t know how to pray, but the Holy Spirit helps us.
Again, if you weren’t here two Sundays ago, listen to that very important message by Robert on praying in dependence on the Spirit according to the will of God.
There are more doctrinal truths than these that undergird our prayers. But those are a few reminders of truths about who God is.
As an aside: A lot of people struggle to know what to say when they pray. One thing you can do to grow your prayer life is get a hold of a list of attributes of God and talk to God about those attributes and offer your requests based upon those attributes.
As a contrast to the four truths about God I just mentioned, here are some truths about us:
Weak (and that’s a good thing) because we won’t even pray if we think we are strong.
Needy (also a good thing) since prayer is simply casting ourselves on God’s mercy. We can’t accomplish any spiritual good without him.
Distracted (not good). In 21st century Southern California, the distractions are endless. That makes prayer harder.
Self-focused (not good). As Robert recently reminded us, we are incorrigibly self-centered. Our propensity is to create our own kingdoms and try to run things the way we want things to be—with ourselves at the center of that kingdom.
Prayer turns all of these on their head as God strengthens us, provides for our needs, helps us to focus on what is important, and points us toward God’s glory rather than our own.
Listen to the whole message HERE. (The message starts at minute 18:00.)
