SNBS Study on Prayer part 1

What's up, guys? Good evening. Welcome to Sunday Night Bible Study with Pastor Josiah Shipley at Witton Baptist Church.

Super excited. We have finished the series on prayer in our in -person regular

Bible study, and we've already started on the book of Matthew. So we're a little bit behind here.

So I am going to try to only spend two weeks on this series on prayer so that online we can catch up and get to the book of Matthew, which we'll be at for a while.

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YouTube channel Witton Media Ministry and all that stuff. Okay? All righty. Prayer.

So let's talk about prayer. We've been in James for so long. It's nice to talk about something else.

So our Greek of the week, and I hope y 'all like it. I'm not gonna have the the scripture up as much today.

I'm gonna use my notes that I handed out. These are my notes that I created for our series on prayer.

So that's what I have on the screen today. Hopefully you guys can see that well. And if you can't comment so I can change it for next time.

So we have two Greek of the weeks. That's what I call it. Greek of the weeks. Deomai means to beg.

Used 22 times in the New Testament. Some of those times referring to prayer. But the most common word for prayer is prosuchomai.

Pros - I think I said that right. Prosuchomai. Prosuchomai. That means to pray. It's used 85 times in the

New Testament alone. Obviously the New Testament is written in Greek. If you want to do a search of Greek in the

Old Testament, you have to use the Greek Septuagint because the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, of course, primarily.

All right. So what I want to do is when we study prayer, I want to talk about attitude first. After attitude, we're gonna talk about mode.

How do you stand? What do you say? Then we're gonna look at the Lord's Prayer.

And then after that, we're gonna do what I call minute -to -minute topics. Little things, little questions that people brought up.

Pray before reading the Bible. Pray Scripture. Pray with your family. Praying with other people. Healing prayer.

Impercatory. Praying without ceasing. Praying in the Spirit. Praying in Jesus' name. All those types of things. So, let's get right to it.

Oh, yeah, we did this in September in person, so we're just a little bit behind. All right.

Got our Greek of the Weeks. Now time for attitude. So, your attitude when you pray should always be an attitude of reverence that is only due to God.

1st Timothy 2 .5. There is one God and one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for all, a testimony at the proper time.

This prayer is only due to God. There is one mediator. Guys, you don't pray to saints on behalf of you to pass on the word to the big man or anything like that.

You don't pray to Mary. You don't pray to... you pray to God alone. Okay? Only due to God.

There is one God and one mediator, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the method by which we have access to the

Father. He is a mediator between God and man. We pray with persistence and patience.

So, like the persistent widow in Luke 18 who constantly goes to the judge. Constantly goes to a judge and asks for justice.

And the judge gets frustrated and finally gives her justice. Now, of course, God is not the judge because God...

in that parable, because God doesn't get frustrated like that and just, alright, fine, just to leave me alone. But we're to be like that widow.

We keep asking. Be patient in affliction, persistent in prayer,

Romans 12 .12. And asking and receiving and asking and not receiving.

Okay? Persistence and patience. Matthew 7 says, keep asking and it will be given to you.

Keep knocking and the door will be opened. This is one of my favorite little passages.

Maybe in the whole Bible. And let's just take a quick look at that. Matthew 6 .25.

Let's see if I can do this right. Matthew 6. Ha! This is so cool.

This is, by the way, this program's called Accordance. Really cool. Matthew, since I got it blowed up so big.

Takes a while to get there. Matthew 6 .25. Oh, yes. Therefore, I'll tell you, don't be anxious about your life, what you'll eat, what you'll drink, nor about your body, what you'll put on.

Is life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap or gather into barns, and that your heavenly father, pater, like paternal.

See that? That little symbol is a pie. Those of you who finished high school will know that symbol is 3 .14

in geometry and in math. But it's the letter P in Greek. So P -A -T -E.

E, and this little row right here, it looks like a P in English, is an R. P -A -T -E -R.

Pater means father. So our heavenly father feeds them, the birds.

Are you not of more value than they? Yes. I'm sorry guys, that offends you.

God does value animals, but not as much as he values human beings. Which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life, or one cubit to his height?

Some translations will say. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.

They neither toil nor spend, and I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these.

But if God so clothes. Just look at that for a minute.

I mean, right here. God so clothes.

Beautiful. God so clothes the grass of the field. Can you see that over here? It says there on the top right, present active indicative.

In other words, not just he did it one time at creation, but every day he clothes the grass of the field, and everything that goes into that.

How much more will he not clothe you, you of little faith? Therefore, don't be anxious, saying, what we eat, what we'll drink.

Your Heavenly Father knows you need all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then all these things will be added unto you.

Guys, if he clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you,

O you of little faith? Beautiful passage. When we pray, guys, when we pray, we have patience and persistence in asking and receiving and asking and not receiving.

We pray in faith that God is always working out his plan. Another passage in John 9, where we have the disciples go up to Jesus and say, hey,

Jesus, settle a bet. Is that guy who's blind and begging down there, is he blind because of his sin or his parents?

And Jesus says neither. He's blind so that the works of God can be done in him and everyone can go watch me heal him.

That man was blind from birth for a purpose of glorifying God, and that man would not have known that purpose for most of his life.

Sometimes God doesn't allow us to see the purpose this side of heaven, but one day he will, as Revelation 15 says.

We have faith that God is working on his plan in answering our prayers, and remember that he can answer yes, no, or wait.

Believing that what you ask will happen. So we ask in faith, believing. We pray with gratitude, with joy and thankfulness even before the answer that we're even allowed to speak to the

Holy God. And then lastly, maybe most importantly, we pray with humility in accepting

God's answer. I'll read what I wrote here. God has the absolute sovereign right and providential wisdom to answer our prayers how he sees fit, and it is truly always for our good and his glory, because for believers our good and his glory are not at odds, but are one in the same thing.

Hallelujah. Praise the Almighty God. There are at least two times in the Bible where I see

God answering no to someone's prayer. Abraham prayed that Ishmael would be acceptable to God, and God said no, because I said through Sarah, Isaac, your seed will be traced.

Paul prayed three times. He pleaded, begged, that whatever this thorn in the flesh was, and we can speculate, could be his blindness, could be his temptation, could be his health.

We don't know. Paul prayed that the thorn in the flesh would be taken away, and God said no, my grace is sufficient for you.

Guys, we don't have the right to pray for something, and if God says no, call that an unanswered prayer.

It's not unanswered. The answer is just an answer you don't like, but it's not unanswered. God can answer no.

He has that right, and we trust that it's for our good and his glory, which for believers are not at odds.

All right, now, what about our mode when we pray? Posture. Lying down, kneeling, standing, all of these are shown or exemplified in the

Bible. We should feel free to pray lying down, kneeling, or standing. However, a little note, sometimes

I think it's good practice for us to kneel or to lie down in order to have a visual that we are humbling ourselves before the king of the universe, but all three of these examples are shown in the

Bible. There are men of God, Jesus himself, praying, standing, kneeling, lying down, so we should feel free in any mode there.

There's not a more powerful way. Out loud or in your head? Out loud is the most common

New Testament, but in your own head is also acceptable. Nehemiah, while answering the king, prayed in his mind.

He didn't stop and say, oh king, let me go pray about it for 10 minutes. He prayed and answered the king.

Length does not matter. There are long prayers in the Bible, medium -length prayers in the Bible, and short prayers in the

Bible. Length does not matter. It is about the content. It's not about you trying to sound fancy with empty words.

It's about you obeying in prayer. All right, so what we're going to do next week, we'll do the breakdown of the

Lord's Prayer. I said we'll do this in two weeks.

Let's see, I don't, I don't.

Let's go ahead and knock out some of the minute -to -minute topics now, and we'll do the

Lord's Prayer next week. So let's do some of the minute -to -minute topics now. Guys, there are some examples in the

Bible of people praying Scripture. Let me encourage you sometimes, if you don't know what to pray, pray Psalm 51.

Pray Psalm 51. Beautiful Psalm. Pray Mark chapter 9,

I believe it is. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. You pray Scripture of saints who have prayed before you.

Remember, a saint is any believer. I try to always pray before I read the

Word, and I'll read you something that I pray. I pray something like this. God, keep me from all error in my own heart.

Help me to hear and apply what you have spoken in your Word, not what I wish you had spoken. Give what you have spoken, not what

I wish you had spoken. Give me the ability and the humility to accept whatever I read, change whatever

I need to change in light of that study, and help others to see what you've illuminated in my spirit. Not exactly those words, but that is my heart when

I pray before I read the Word. Pray with my family. Man, I know this is difficult.

Mothers as well, I know this is difficult, but your family should see you praying with them. I believe there's something powerful about doing it out loud.

If you may feel awkward, that's even better, because then they get to see a great example of you not allowing your feelings and insecurities to keep you from obeying

God. I typically, when

I go to a restaurant, before I eat, when my food is brought to me,

I ask the waitress or the waiter, is there anything, I'm about to pray, is there anything I could pray for you about?

Sometimes they say yes. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes they pray with me. Sometimes they said no.

Sometimes they say absolutely not. I'll just put it that way, and that's okay.

I extend the offer. It gives me an opportunity to pray with others. Healing prayer is not a mystical, extra -powerful prayer, but rather an earnest prayer for healing, and it's practiced in the church for no other reason than God commanded us to do so.

The only reason, excuse me, we anoint people with oil, you know why?

Not because it's some special, sacred oil, because God told us to, James chapter 5. We covered that when we went over the

Book of James. There are some impregnatory prayers in the

Bible. This is praying God's judgment on people. They should be rare, but the heart of it is this.

We should always seek mercy for others. We don't pray for justice, but we do pray for justice in the sense that we want

God to be vindicated, His justice to be demonstrated. We should desire for His righteousness to shine forth on those who forsake

Him, make a mockery of it or disregard it, and be put in the rightful place on their faces before the holy and true sovereign king of the universe.

An impregnatory prayer is praying God's judgment on somebody. That should not be done lightly.

It should be done out of heart and a desire to see God vindicated, not to see someone else punished. What does pray without ceasing mean?

We've heard this always. Well guys, if you have in mind prayer is always this. That's not what

Paul has in mind, because he wasn't doing this when he was writing the letters, pray without ceasing. What he means is that you're in a constant state of communication with God in every aspect of your life, and you are acknowledging

Him as in control and an intimate communion with you in that. Trust in the

Lord with all your heart, need not your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him as God, and He will direct your path.

Praying without ceasing is a constant communication, a constant mindset focused on God, even when you're doing mundane things.

Same thing when we say pray in the Spirit. The Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is the person of the triune

God that is most clearly and directly involved with our sanctification. In fact, in prayer, the

Bible says in Romans 8, He's the one that intercedes for us when we don't even know how to pray as we ought.

What a beautiful passage. We pray in Jesus name because He is the mediator by which we have access to the triune

God. So that's just some standard things on our attitude and our mode while we pray and some minute -to -minute topics.

Next week, we'll do a breakdown and exposition of what is often called the Lord's Prayer.

Guys, don't forget to download the Witton app, Witton Baptist Church. Subscribe on YouTube. Any other questions or comments you have,

I try to always read them whenever there are. Like, share, subscribe this video if it was helpful to you. Love you guys very much, and I will see y 'all next week.