The Basics of Prayer

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Hello, welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture, and media from a Reformed perspective.

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Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to engage today's topic.

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Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.

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Today is October 15th, 2020.

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If you're following along in our daily Bible reading, today you're going to be reading from Hebrews chapter 12.

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If you'd like to be a part of our daily Bible reading, you can go to our website, sgfcjacks.org.

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That is Sovereign Grace Family Church of Jacksonville.

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Go to the posts section of the website and under posts, you will see our 2020 reading list.

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We're reading through the New Testament, one chapter a day, every weekday.

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You have the weekends to catch up if you're behind.

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And we're reading the books of the New Testament in the order that we believe that they were written in.

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Today we're going to be talking about a subject that was actually requested by a listener and a member of our church, a new member of our church, someone who has recently become a member of our church.

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And she came to us by way of baptism.

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And her name is Nicole.

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And Nicole and I were talking about the program.

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She listens.

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And if you're listening today, Nicole, hello.

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Thank you for this request.

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And she was talking about basics of the faith.

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What can we do to increase our understanding of those things that we all ought to be doing? And we could all do a little bit better.

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We were talking about things like prayer, Bible study, all of these spiritual disciplines that we should be participating in as believers.

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And as we were talking, I said, you know, the program would be a great opportunity to share those things.

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These are all things that are useful.

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And I know that I have dealt with these subjects some on this program in the past.

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We've been doing Coffee with the Calvinists now for about six months.

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And so I do this every day, every morning at 630.

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There's a new episode every weekday.

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So I've dealt with the subjects before, but I'm going to go back and in the weeks ahead, I'm going to just once or twice a week, I'm going to deal with a spiritual discipline and talk about that discipline and talk about ways that we can grow in that particular area.

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And like I said, I enjoy the other parts of the program.

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I really enjoy the interviews that we've been doing.

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I enjoy responding and talking about culture and media, which is part of what we do on this program.

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But the most important thing that we do is talk about the word.

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You know, it's a daily conversation about scripture, culture and media.

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And of course, scripture is the first and most important thing that we should be talking about.

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So what I want to do on today's program is I want to talk about the subject of prayer.

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And I want to talk about the discipline of prayer.

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And I want to talk about how someone who may be new to the faith might approach the discipline of prayer and how we would encourage someone to become more active and more intimate in their prayer life.

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So if you have your Bibles today, I want to encourage you to open them to Luke chapter 11.

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In Luke chapter 11, verse 1, we read these words.

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Now, Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.

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And he said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins.

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For we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation.

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Now, that's where the verse in the ESV ends there in verse 4 of what we typically call the Lord's Prayer.

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But actually, it's not the Lord's Prayer.

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It's better to call this prayer the model prayer, because Jesus himself would not pray this prayer for himself, because Jesus was sinless.

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Jesus would not say, forgive me of my sins, because Jesus didn't have any.

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And so, when we talk about the Lord's Prayer, oftentimes we forget that the Lord himself did pray, and he prayed on several occasions, and the most lengthy prayer that we have of Jesus, where he is praying, is in John 17.

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We call that the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus.

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So if you want to see what Jesus prayed like when he was praying a prayer that he would pray, then I would encourage you to read John 17.

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But when he was asked by his disciples, Lord, teach us to pray, we come to this, what is typically called the Lord's Prayer, but I'm going to call today the model prayer.

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And I call it model for two reasons.

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One, it's model in the sense that Jesus gives it as a model.

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But also, is I think the prayer is modular in a sense, in that I don't believe the prayer was intended to be repeated, as is often the case when people recite this prayer.

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Most people, when they recite the Lord's Prayer, recite it as they were taught it, and most of us learned it in the style that it is written in the King James, and you'll notice that when I read in Luke chapter 11, it's shorter than what most of you remember, if you memorized it.

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The King James Bible, the prayer that we normally learn from the King James Bible is actually taken from Matthew chapter 6, and we're going to look at Matthew 6 in a moment.

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But it's two different times.

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In Matthew 6, Jesus is in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, in Luke 11, Jesus is responding to a request, Lord, teach us to pray.

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So we're looking at two different contexts, and likely what it is, is we're seeing two expressions of a very similar prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray.

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In the Sermon on the Mount, he's talking about not praying in vain repetition.

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In fact, if you want to turn in your Bibles with me, turn to Matthew 6, and you'll notice it begins in verse 5, it says, When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.

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Truly I say to you, they have their reward.

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What is their reward? Being seen by others.

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That's what they want, that's what they get.

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Verse 6, But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

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And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their many words.

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Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask.

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Pray then like this.

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And this is where we get somewhat more of the traditional prayer that most of us are used to.

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Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

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Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us this day our daily bread.

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And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors.

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And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

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So there is the longer version of this same prayer.

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But as I said, I believe this prayer is modular.

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I think that it has parts that Jesus is intending to teach his disciples to pray.

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I don't think that it's intended to be memorized and therefore intended to be some form of repetitious prayer.

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In fact, I find very ironic that in Roman Catholicism, when they are praying the rosary, they pray the beads, and they go through the beads and there are the Hail Marys, the Hail Mary and certain beads are for the Lord's model prayer, which they call the Our Father prayer.

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Which that's fine.

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That's not the problem.

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The problem is they say it repetitiously.

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In the exact wrong way.

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Because Jesus has said, don't pray in vain repetition.

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And what's more vain than holding a set of beads and going through the beads and literally just repeating words mindlessly as you go through the beads.

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I think it's an exact opposite of what Jesus would want us to do.

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So that's not the subject of today.

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Just a little side note.

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I think the way a lot of people use the Lord's prayer is vain repetition.

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Jesus told us not to pray in vain repetition.

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Therefore I think a lot of people use the Lord's prayer or the Lord's model prayer incorrectly.

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How then should we use the model prayer? Well my opinion is that it is, as I said, modular.

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Therefore we take it in its parts.

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Now several months ago I did three lessons on prayer for the men of Set Free Ministries.

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These lessons can be found on our website under our sermon audio link.

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You can go back and find them.

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You can also find them on our YouTube page.

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So if you would like a longer explanation of what I'm about to give you in a very shortened form I would encourage you to go back, find those, see what you can find there and see if it would help you.

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But as of today I just want to break it down relatively quickly.

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First by saying Jesus begins with the phrase Our Father.

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Right there is a very important statement.

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It's a statement of intimacy.

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He's reminding us that when we talk to God because of our relationship with Him we have been adopted into the family of God.

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We can refer to God as Our Father.

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Romans chapter 8 reminds us that we get to call God Abba Father which is the highest of intimacy with the Father.

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We call Him Abba.

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And that is like Daddy or Papa.

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That is a statement of intimacy.

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To be able to call God Father is very important.

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And so I think that being the first thing that is said reminds us of the intimacy we have in prayer.

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There is a certain intimacy that we get to have as believers in Christ that we should never forget.

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But then he goes on immediately to say Hallowed be thy name.

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Now the word hallowed is not a common word for us in general but it simply means holy.

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And so Our Father who art in heaven, holy is your name.

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And if you remember in Leviticus chapter 10 when God struck down Nadab and Abihu because they brought strange fire, what did He say? He said to Moses, those who draw near to me must see me as holy.

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They must regard me as holy.

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And so even though God is our Father, we must not forget that He is also the Holy One.

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He is absolutely separate from sin.

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He is the awe-inspiring, majestic, holy God.

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When Isaiah saw God high and lifted up on His throne, he put his hand over his mouth and said, woe is me because he understood at that moment that God was holy.

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And so that is an important reality that we should not forget in prayer is there is intimacy but there is also majesty in the prayer.

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And this leads us into the next thing which is submission.

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Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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That's a statement of submission.

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So all of this is bringing us into the throne room of God.

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All of this is Jesus' way of saying, okay, when we come into the throne room of God, understand who we're talking to here.

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We're talking to the Father, but we're also talking to the Holy One of Israel.

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We're also talking to the One who created the world, the King of heaven and earth.

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And I think sometimes we can take prayer too lightly.

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I think sometimes we can take, we can go, the pendulum can swing both ways.

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Some people, they don't feel like they can pray because they feel like God is so far above and so high above that he would never condescend to relate to them.

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And he does.

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He condescends to us and therefore we can have that relationship with him.

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But on the other hand, I think some people think that because of God's condescension that somehow he puts himself on our level and therefore we can just have some type of flippant conversation.

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I don't think we should do that either.

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I think we should take prayer seriously.

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Tomorrow, on tomorrow's program, I'm going to talk about Martin Luther, one of the reformers who many of you have heard me talk about before.

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He is certainly someone who's had great impact on the world and my life in particular.

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And we're going to talk about how he viewed prayer.

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And this is, again, something to consider.

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God is majestic and God is holy, but God is also Father and he is relational.

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So coming into the presence of God, I would say first and foremost, remember who God is.

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Remember who it is you're speaking to and consider that when you're going into your prayer posture.

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And this is where I think posture can play a part in prayer because some people feel like they need to be on their knees.

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Some people feel like they want to stand up and lift their hands up when they pray.

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Some people clasp their hands before their mouth.

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And that's something that typically I will do is hold my hands together in front of my face, which is a, it's a position of, of being submissive.

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Closing the hands in front of the face is a very common prayer position.

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I do like to pray on my knees though.

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When I have the opportunity to get down on the side of my bed or to go into my children's room, get down on the side of their bed, down on my knees, face down on the mattress and pray.

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Because again, it leads me into that place of prayer, that, that submissive understanding who I'm talking to.

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But then again, I think sometimes not only am I down on my knees before the king of the universe, but it's almost, I have another thought.

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When I was, when I was a kid, my dad would sit in his chair and for those who've been to my father's house, many of you have, who are church members, you know, my dad's house is, that's where we go to have the bonfires and stuff.

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My dad's house is pretty, pretty much the go-to place.

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And we go to have things at the church.

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It's just, he has a nice place out in Callahan.

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We all go and enjoy it.

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And when I was a kid, there's actually pictures of me doing this.

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I used to sit between my dad's feet and watch television.

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But a lot of times I would turn around and I would put my head in his lap.

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Now, this is when I was five, six, seven years old.

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And I would, and there's, I mean, there's pictures of me laying, I was on my knees, laying with my head on my dad's knees.

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And I remember this as a kid.

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And this is, this is the position I think about in prayer.

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When I, when I get down on my knees and I put my head on the mattress, I think about myself being at the foot of, at the feet of God, my father, the Holy one of Israel.

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Yes.

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The majestic one, the one who has created all things and yet loves me and allows me to be in a relationship with him.

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This is an amazing, this is an amazing thing.

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And, you know, that's, that's really where I'm going to, I'm going to kind of just stop here today because I can see already by, as the time has gone, I'm not going to have time to get to the rest of the prayer.

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I'm going to talk some more tomorrow about the Lord's prayer, because part of that is when I talk about Martin Luther.

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And perhaps this may even move into another episode next week as we break down the prayer further.

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But as I said, when you're praying the model prayer, think about its parts.

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And the first part is how you enter into the presence of God.

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Remember who it is you're talking to.

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Remember that God is your father and he loves you, but he's still the God of the universe who created all things.

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And therefore there's, there's this sort of two ways of seeing God in that, in that we're seeing God as creator, master, king, and father who loves us.

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So I encourage you when you're going into God's presence, remember it is, remember who it is to whom you're speaking.

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And I think that's first and foremost, what we learn in the model prayer.

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I hope that's been a help to you.

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And I hope this has been an encouragement to you to pray.

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And one other thing, I'll say this as I close, you need to pray and I need to pray.

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Jesus prayed.

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If Jesus needed to pray as the God man, then we much more so need to pray.

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So my encouragement is to pray, even if you're having trouble knowing how, even if you're having trouble knowing what to say, learn that model prayer, learn it and look at its parts and see the way Jesus teaches us how to pray and begin to apply those parts to your daily prayer life.

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Thank you for listening today to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I have been your Calvinist.

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May God bless you.

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Him to be a perfect savior.

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He is the way, the truth and the life.

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And no one comes to the father except through him.

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May God be with you.