The Purpose of Prayer

You know, I think, I was thinking as Brother Mike, I was thinking of many things as Brother Mike was speaking, I thought about the idea that when you are exposed to real preaching, you don't want it to stop.

And if you think about that, that's the truth. Whether it works to make us think of ourselves less or more, true preaching will always keep us you hungering. And so, Brother Mike, I certainly, it's hard to follow you, but I'm gonna make every attempt to do so.

The Corporate Setting of Worship and the Definition of Prayer

All right, so let me begin. I wanna make a few statements as we start, because I think it's important as we enter into this, this reality of prayer that we have some thoughts to help build a base, and then we'll work from there going forward.

I wanna remind us, first of all, of the title of our conference. Brother Keith had mentioned this on Wednesday night, that we had gone to a conference in Memphis, and that was where we first began to form the idea of the theology of worship, as that was one of the messages that we heard of.

But I wanted to remind you that in the title, we also included the word corporate. And we included that word corporate for a very specific reason. And the reason is this, we realized, as I hope you will, we realized that the word corporate needed to be added in to our title.

And that being because if you begin to consider what preaching is, if you begin to consider what prayer is, and then as Brother Keith will bring to us in the area of praise, specifically in the area of song and of music, if you do not confine that somehow, the subject is so large, you couldn't even begin to scratch the surface.

So we spent much time in thinking, it wasn't just, hey, this sounds good, let's just do this. It was really the result of our thoughts that we needed to put parameters around it. And that's why we titled it, the theology of worship in a corporate setting, rather than just leaving it without that fence around it, if you will.

So I wanted to mention that. And I wanted us to consider that we wanna speak directly about those three truths, preaching, prayer and praise, again, in the confines of corporate worship as we gather together as a body of Christ and as we unite ourselves together.

So that certainly is something I wanted to set before you as we begin. I also wanna set before you a definition of prayer. And again, you might have some different thoughts about it and that would be fine to talk about, but I think I have captured most of what would be included in a definition of prayer.

And it's always good to know, to have a definition of something in order to be able to understand it and participate in it and actually to speak of it and think of it. So let me offer this to you as a definition of prayer, that prayer is offering up our desires to God for things agreeable to His will in the name of Christ by the help of the Spirit with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of His mercies.

Let me just read that to you again. A lot of words, a lot of thoughts in very few words. Prayer is the offering up of our desires to God for things agreeable to His will in the name of Christ by the help of the Spirit with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of His mercy.

And we could spend the rest of the time that we have just to consider that one statement, but I do want to at least have you think about that as we move further in this idea of the theology of prayer in corporate worship.

I also wanna set before us the main parts of prayer. And again, you might have some different understanding and that would be something that we could discuss, but I do believe that I've captured in the main the different aspects of prayer that you and I ought to consider specifically in our corporate worship, but also in our life in general.

And let me mention them to you that, and I will say this, they will have overlap in the terms that we use, but they also are distinct. And I think that's important for us to remember that prayer is not just something that we do in one way, according to one thing and that's it, but that prayer is so wide and has so many aspects to it that you and I need to consider it.

So let me mention these to you very briefly that in prayer, one of the things that make up prayer is adoration. Adoration, and basically what I say in that is that, that prayer is communing with God and speaking to God, having fellowship with God because of who he is.

We adore him, we adore him. And so certainly that has to be included in this, if you will, as an ingredient in prayer. And then I would ask you to think about, not only is it adoration, but it's praise.

And when I say it that way, and again, you might think that they are two of the same thing. I think you can make a biblical argument and we should, that there's a distinction from that, in that adoration in our prayer is giving thanks to God for who he is and that praise is our prayer of giving thanks for what he has done.

That there's a distinction between praying and giving thanks to God for who he is. And then in praise, we thank him for what he's done. And then there's petition where we present ourselves before God with the things that we have need of, the things that we are unable in and of ourselves to bring to pass.

And so this whole area of petition enters into the theology of prayer. And there's also thanksgiving. And again, you might say thanksgiving is the same as praise. I think I could set before you some different thoughts on that, but nevertheless, that's one of the areas, one of the distinct categories, if you will, of prayer.

And then there's confession, where we present ourselves before God as those who have missed the mark, have fallen short of the glory of God, and knowingly confess that not only have we fallen short, but there are many times in our life in which we still fall short.

Even as the apostle John said, if any man says he has not sinned, he has deceived himself, and the truth is not in him. So there's another area of consideration for prayer. And then I would add supplication.

And in that, I would say that that is where we not only look to God for forgiveness for the things that we do not do that we should do, or the things that we do that we should not do, but this area of supplication where we come before God and we seek for grace.

We seek for him to do not only what we cannot do, but what he can do. And so we come before him in supplication. And if you would think about it, there are many times in our own lives, in our own hearts, brothers and sisters, where we are crying out to God.

And that is prayer in many ways. It's not just a repetition of words. It's not just saying certain things at certain times, but it's really the groaning inside of us as we look to God, knowing that he is able to do what we cannot do.

And then finally, I would ask you to think about this area of intercession. That prayer in many ways is intercession, where we come to God on behalf of others, and that ought to be, if you consider it, and what I will hope to show you as we go through this morning, that ought to be an integral part of our worship, that you and I are not just consumed with ourselves in our prayers, but that we are consumed in that we intercede for others who have needs, who have issues, the issues of life.

And so certainly that is another category of prayer. So I wanted to mention that to you. I don't wanna spend much more time on that because I have some other things I wanna present to us, but that if you begin to think about it, that these are distinct areas, and I will just repeat them to you so you can consider them as we go through this, of adoration and praise and petition and thanksgiving, confession, supplication, and intercession.

I would also say this. We haven't, my introduction is not as long as Brother Mike's or Brother Keith's, but these are introductory remarks. And I ask you to think about them because we have not even yet opened our Bibles.

I have not mentioned a single verse of scripture to you. And yet I believe that we have already begun to open up this whole truth concerning prayer and that's again why I say to you, we can find it within the boundaries, if you will, of our united corporate worship to help structure it because again, it would be very easy in this whole subject of prayer to be all over the place because it's such an encompassing truth.

I wanna make an analogy too. Not trying to be allegorical, but I wanna make an analogy. And here it is. To me, and again, my thought, to me, prayer is to the Christian as oil is to an engine. To me, prayer is to the Christian as oil is to an engine.

If you just think for a moment, the purpose of oil in an engine. Now, I'm not a mechanic nor the son of a mechanic. But I think I know enough about an engine and the use of oil. And if you think about it, the oil is inserted into the engine to keep it from overheating and seizing up.

The oil is used in an engine to help purify impurities and keep the gears moving freely as they were meant to. So when I say to you that I believe that prayer is as oil it is as to an engine, that you and I would begin to understand the centrality, if you will, of not only the need of prayer, but of the benefit of prayer and of the use of prayer in our worship, both individually and corporately.

And that you and I would both know, if you run out, I know this, if you run out of oil in your car, rut row. And I say to you, if we do not have a proper understanding of what prayer is and make use of prayer in its right way, then our spiritual engine will seize up.

Or it will be so gunked up, it really will become ineffective. I also want to make this remark. The biblical format, if you will, for prayer, as it's laid out to us, particularly in the New Testament, is that we come to the Father through the Son.

And I hope to show you not only through the Son, but by the Son, by the help and aid of the Holy Spirit. That that is the biblical format, if you will. You can see it across the pages of the New Testament, that it is to approach God through the person of the Son with the enablement of the Spirit of God.

Therefore, again, as Brother Mike rightfully emphasized, this whole area of prayer is a Trinitarian work. And that the Trinity is central in that thought of prayer. And that blueprint that's given to us in the New Testament is, as I said, come to the Father through the Son by the Spirit.

Now, I just want to make this remark. That does not mean that if we do not come in that format, that we are not praying. I've met people and I've known people and I've heard, I've actually heard it many times from the pulpit, that you ought not to pray to Jesus, you pray to the Father through the Son by the power of the Spirit.

Well, I disagree. I disagree in that if you are to pray, if you are praying and you pray to Jesus, you are praying to God. And further, if you pray to the Holy Spirit, you are praying to God. That that formula that is given to us, laid out for us, is not in that sense, absolutely binding.

And if we do it in any other form or fashion, we're wrong or we're negligent. There's been many times, and I would think you would agree, that we have cried out to Jesus. We have cried out to the Holy Spirit.

Again, being of the same essence, three distinct persons, all eternal, all co-equal, that there is, in that sense, no damage if we are praying to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, to God. The issue is that we are praying.

That's the issue. We can get hung up on all the other things. I remember, and I said to myself, I wouldn't go into my background as being brought up Catholic. But at the same time, I can remember how that, the Hail Mary was drilled into my brain, and across my knuckles, because they used to use the little, the nuns used to use the little hatchet.

And if you've never had that experience, you haven't missed a thing. But they walked around with this little hatchet, and anytime you did something wrong, they just, man, I'll tell you, they were good at punishment.

My point is that you and I need to have a sense of freedom in prayer, and yet, and yet, we need to also have a sense of understanding that we are coming before God in prayer, desiring of Him, as I said to you, many things with great acknowledgement of His mercy.

I also wanna set this before you before we get into the real thought of what I wanted to present this morning. And it's a short story, and I made the story up, so if it works, praise God, and if it doesn't work, praise God.

But let me just tell you a little story. There was a farmer, and he lived next door to a carpenter. And the farmer and the carpenter, they were both Christians. And the farmer one day got up early in the morning, and he, as his custom was, was giving himself to a time of prayer.

And his prayer had in one of its particulars that he prayed to God that the rain would come, because he had just planted his crops, just plowed his ground, put his seed in the ground, and he knew and realized that unless God brought the rains to water the crops, that no matter what he did, he would never see the result, and he knew he depended on the rain and the crops to provide for himself and his family.

He's done all his due diligence, and now he has to come before God and petition God to bless him by bringing him the rains. And as I say, he prays earnestly to God. Well, unknown to the farmer, the carpenter who lives next door to him, who, by the way, has been hired by the farmer to put a new roof on his barn.

And the carpenter, he wakes up in the morning, he has bought all the material to put the new roof on the farmer's barn. He's done his due diligence. He's prepared everything. And as he prays that very same morning, he prays, oh God, please keep the rains away.

For you know, God, I cannot put a roof on that barn if it rains. And Lord, if I cannot put the roof on that barn, then I can't supply the needs of my family. And so he prays earnestly to God. Well, at the end of the day, both the farmer and the carpenter pray to God.

But here's what happens. One of them, and I didn't get any further in the story, so you'll have to figure it out for yourself. One of them is going to pray and thank God for blessing him and answering his prayer.

Now, they're both Christians. So the other man, he will pray also. But I would suggest he struggles more in prayer than the one who thanked God for answering his prayer. Because as he thinks, God didn't either hear him or answer him.

Now, that might seem like a silly, simple story, but I believe it will prove to be a point as we go through this. And the point being is that, first of all, prayer in its offering is an act of faith. And also, prayer in the answering is an act of faith.

And that, and this is the real heart of it, there's a great difference praying according to the revealed will of God and praying according to the secret will of God. Because in reality, neither the farmer nor the carpenter knew what God's will was for that day.

And that you and I would have to begin to realize in our prayer life and as a corporate body in our united worship, that if we are praying according to the will of God, we can rest knowing that our prayers will be answered.

However, when we become engulfed in the secret will of God, it is still an act of faith, it is still the prayer that we offer, but there is that reality of not knowing for sure concerning God answering our prayers.

And I do believe that's where many of us, if you will, will run off the rail, where we begin to either assume on God's secret will or in prayer, ignore God's revealed will. And neither of those are good.

That you and I, when we pray, and especially when we unite our hearts together, would be mindful of that. Because prayer is not just this mystical thing that takes place. It is to be thoughtful. It is to consider.

It is to weigh out the things that we are praying for, as well as the one whom to we pray to. And so ask you as we go through this to consider that also. My intent today is to, and I told Brother Keith, me and Brother Keith, Brother Mike, we had talked about the subjects and who was gonna do what, and Brother Keith had said something, because I think I said to Brother Keith and Brother Mike, well, what would your expectation be of my task to present the theology of prayer and worship?

And Brother Keith had said something. He said, well, you know, we do a lot of praying in our service. And he didn't say much more than that. And then I said, wait a minute. If there's anything that we ought to do in preparing in our worship for prayer, it ought to be the very prayers that we pray in our worship service.

So to that intent, what I'd like to do is to walk us through the prayers we offer in our corporate worship, and to see if we truly understand why we do what we do, how we do what we do, and how we consider those very things.

Because here's the reality. So of course I had to figure out, okay, well, how many times do we pray when we get together on Sunday? And again, as Brother Mike had brought up, there are many times we pray, we're in Bible study, but we're talking about our United Corporate Worship when we come into what we would consider to be the preaching hour.

Although I would contest that we preach in Sunday school too, but nevertheless. And so I began to count and I realized this, and this is where I will take us for the remainder of our time, that we pray at least six times as a body of believers in our corporate worship.

We pray at least six times, and so I wanna look at each one of them and ask you to consider them. And so we pray in the opening of our service. We also pray when we bring our offerings to God. We pray when we come to our united prayer, pastoral prayer, intercessory prayer.

It's when we stop for a few minutes and we all seek to be united in our prayer, lifting up, and again, those very distinct parts of prayer, whether it be petition or thanksgiving or adoration or praise or intercession, that time of prayer.

And then if you remember, we pray before we preach. Not only do we pray before we preach, we pray after we preach. And then we pray when we come to the Lord's table. And then finally, we pray when we close our united worship.

So there are at least six specific times that we as a body of believers, and Lord Willem will do it tomorrow, we will unite ourselves in prayer at least on those six occasions. And I would ask us to think about why we do those very things.

Let me just say this to us. Prayer ought to be the truest thing we do. It ought not to be something we do because we always did it. It ought not just to be some repetition or some regimented thing that we do, even as Jesus said to the Pharisees, you think you're gonna be heard because you keep repeating the same things, but that you and I would truly consider what we are doing.

Because I trust that that's why we come together as a body of believers. It's to worship, is it not? And if it's to worship, then those ingredients, those areas, even as Brother Mike brought up in preaching and as we consider prayer and as Brother Keith will show in praise and in music and in song, those things must be right.

And not just liturgy, not just something we just follow some agenda. And so certainly in this area of prayer, we ought to be true and we ought to be honest and we ought to be conscious of what we're doing rather than just doing something that either someone told us to do or that we do because that's just the way we do it.

So as we go through this, I would ask us to think about this. I will mention a verse now to get started. And that verse is, and you don't have to turn to it, I'm gonna read to you, it's very short because I'm not gonna deal with the verse in particular, but it's like, to me, sticking a flag in the ground.

And it's what Jesus said in Luke chapter 18, when it says he spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart. Men ought always to pray and not lose heart. Think of this. Think of it, friends, as rational, finite, dependent creatures, frail as could be made of dust, that you and I ought to pray to God who created us, who opens his hand and sustains us, who will ultimately in that day take us out of this world.

We ought always to pray and not lose heart. You see, we, brothers and sisters, men and women, we have this unique privilege to approach the living God. We have this responsibility and privilege to hold communion with the immortal, only wise, eternal God of heaven and earth, to have fellowship with him.

And again, that's what, in many ways, what prayer is. It's the whole communion and fellowship with the creator, with the Lord of glory. The psalmist says this. He says, give ear to my words, O Lord, and consider my meditation, and give heed to my, the voice of my cry, my King and my God, for to you I will pray.

My voice you shall hear in the morning, O Lord. In the morning, I will direct it to you, and I will look up. Psalm five. That that's the privilege we have. Hey, as those that have been brought out of death into life, that we get to commune with God.

You know, if you think about it, if you search this whole earth, I don't care where you go. It doesn't matter what custom, what culture, what civilization, what time, what any of those variables. You will find that men, women, people, created in the image of God, will always lift their voice to some so-called God.

They will seek forgiveness. They will seek help. They will offer praise. They will offer worship, and that is because, again, we have been created in such a way to hold communion with God, and that is something that we alone possess as being the crown of God's creation.

You will never find a horse, a dog, a fish, a bird. You will never find them opening their window three times a day and praying to God. They have no consciousness of this infinite Holy One. I'm not saying, and don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying they don't praise God because it says even the trees clap their hands to God.

But what I am saying, brothers and sisters, friends, in our worship, we ought to be mindful of who we are, and of this glorious privilege to come before Him, to voice our dependence, to voice our hopes and our desires.

We are the only ones that have this understanding, and we're responsible for it, and I will show you as we go through this of the consequence of not holding communion with God, because there is. So let me take you through our worship service for a few minutes and ask us to think about the things that we do and why we do them.

The Opening Prayer and the Need for Reverence

So as I mentioned to you at least six times, and so let me mention the first one, and that's our opening prayer. When we first come and we gather and we open up our worship service. And I wanna ask you to think about this because it's important because again, we are coming to worship the living and true God, that as we open our service, there is a very special reason why we pray.

And that is because we're asking God to come into our worship and to be, that we would be allowed to participate in a united way in our worship to Him. We are stating that we are in union with Him as His special people, as His particular people, as His treasure in that sense through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And so I say to us, as we open up our worship service, that we are truly asking God that we might be allowed to enter into His presence, and that God would be pleased with our worship, and that God would be pleased to send, even as Brother Mike so pointedly brought out on the preaching, that we pray in our opening prayer that God would send Jesus to us by the power of the Spirit that we might return worship to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

And I would say this, I'm not looking to get myself in trouble this morning, but I'm pretty good at it. So I'm going to say it. When we come into this gathering together, we ought to be a little bit more mindful of what we're doing, even in our opening prayer.

And again, I'll put it to you this way, exactly what the Psalmist says. It says, God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints and to be held in reference by all those that are around Him.

And listen, our opening prayer is not time for you to make sure you have enough mints or make sure you're comfortable enough or you're talking to someone else. I submit to you that if it's prayer, it ought to be united, and we ought to be a little bit reverent about it.

Now, you might think that when you talk to someone else, it's something between peers. And it might very well be. But now we're God friends. Our opening prayer is we're asking God to do what only God can do.

We are acknowledging His sovereignty and we are acknowledging our frailty. Listen to this, what Paul says in Ephesians. He says that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding be enlightening that you may know what is the hope of His calling and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.

When we come and we gather, when we unite ourselves in worship, we are asking God to come in that sense in our midst and to be able to enter into His presence. Is that what we do when we open our worship service?

Or do we just think, well, I only got a couple more seconds before I gotta do something. Again, I'm not saying we ought to come in here and be fearful and not have fellowship and not be able to minister to one another.

And I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying when we open our service, we ought to realize and we ought to be praying united that God will be pleased regardless of whether men are pleased. And so that's our opening prayer.

Thanksgiving and Stewardship in the Offering Prayer

The next time we pray is during our offering. Now, I hope you don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying we're not praying all along, but these are the times in our corporate worship when we set aside time specifically for prayer and in that sense for specific prayers.

And so the next time is when we come to bring our offering. And if you think about it, that prayer ought to really be a delight. You know that? Do you and I understand that when we pray and offer up our tithes, our offerings, whichever way you wanna describe it, that you and I, that it would be a delight and that that delight would be a delight to God.

That it would be a sweet aroma and not an odor. It ought to be a prayer of thanksgiving, praise. I'm gonna read a couple of scriptures to you. And this one's from the Old Testament. And I chose it because I wanted to present this truth maybe from a scripture that we don't always use when we pray about our offering as we often go to 2 Corinthians and again, rightfully so.

But let me read this to you. This is out of Deuteronomy. And God says this, when you have eaten and are full and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied when your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness in which there were serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water, who brought water for you out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which our fathers did not know that he might humble you, that he might test you to do good in the end.

And then you say in your heart, my power and my might of my hand has gained me this wealth. And you shall remember the Lord, your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant, which he swore to your fathers as it is this day.

You know, in our offering prayer, brothers and sisters, we ought to acknowledge that apart from him, not only are we nothing, we have nothing, nothing. Zip, what do we have that we have not received? And so when we offer up this prayer of thanksgiving during our offering, it ought to be real, shouldn't it?

Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, no shadow of turning. Solomon says this in Ecclesiastes, as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth and given him the power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor, this is the gift of God.

Is this our thinking when we pray for our offering? Is it a joyful spirit or a sour spirit? And believe me, you can have a sour spirit with a smile on your face. Is our prayer meant to be a sweet aroma who has given us so much beyond beyond what can never be measured because he's given us Christ.

And yet you and I, we sit, even as Isaiah said, we sit in our sealed houses and we eat like kings and we feast and we enjoy the goodness of God, especially in our land. Ought we not, when we pray and offer up our thanksgiving to God, ought it not be real, ought it not we be united in it?

Or again, is it just the brother that comes up here and leads us in that prayer? And again, while he's praying for the offering, we're off. Gee, I wonder what I'm gonna eat today. Yeah, I wonder what's on TV tonight.

What am I gonna do this week? Again, the reality is God sees. He knows. He understands every thought we have. Ought we not to seek to be true? The next time we pray, as again, as I said, whether you want to turn with the pastoral prayer or intercessory prayer, united prayer, our next time is when we, in united worship, come before God and it's a particularly important time.

It's not recess. It's not the time when, I always like when Brother Keith leads us in prayer, because after he's done, he'll say, I don't know if I was praying or preaching. And I'll say, I don't know whether he's praying or preaching, but I know it's prayer in one way or another.

I love to hear the brothers pray. I truly do. Brother Mike, you could pray for six hours and I'm good to go, but it's a particularly important time. It's here where we, as the people of God, not only acknowledge him as God, but we acknowledge him as, again, frail and yes, many times, foolish, stubborn, hard-headed.

Want an Italian word for hard-headed? Gavados! Many times, exactly what we are. And I can hear my grandfather saying that, because it really means hard-headed, cold-hearted, that you and I would realize that it is here where we not only come to God in Jesus' name, but I want to make a point, I want to stress something.

It's not only in Jesus' name, it's by Jesus that we come to the father. What I mean by that is Jesus is not only the door that brings us in to the father, but Jesus himself is the high priest who ever lives to make intercession for us.

And we do not know what we ought to pray for as we ought. And Jesus ever lives, do we not understand what it says in Hebrews? He ever lives to make intercession for us. And so we not only approach united in our prayer, but we unite ourselves in Jesus' name and by Jesus' work, by the truth and the reality that he's on the throne, that he has access, and he has all authority and all power.

Is that not true of the Holy Spirit? Let me remind you, Paul, Romans eight. Likewise, the spirit also helps us in our weaknesses, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought. But the spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Now he who searches the heart knows what the mind of the spirit is because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And again, I say to you, brothers and sisters, that time when we pray is not a time to check out.

It's the time to check in. It's not just filler, not something we do just to extend a service. It's not even something we do just to make other people think that we're spiritual. We are seeking united to bow and to petition and to praise and to adore our God through our Lord Jesus Christ, who so loved us that he gave himself for us by the power and the help of the Holy Spirit.

The psalmist says this. He says, it's Psalm 86. He says, unite my heart to fear your name. I will praise you, O Lord, my God, with all my heart. I will glorify your name forevermore, for great is your mercy towards me as you have delivered my soul from the depths of a shield.

When we pray together and unite our hearts, we ought to be reminded of that over and over and over again that God would unite our hearts as his people to fear his name, to stand in awe of him, to live in awe of him.