Praying Like God is Your Father (pt. 2)

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Well, the last four weeks I've been teaching a preaching class at Southern Seminary over Northborough and one of the students asked me this week, do you still get nervous when you preach?
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And my response was, of course I get nervous. I said if you get nervous because you want to look good and you want to come across as a great preacher and the next
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John MacArthur or somebody then, that would be bad. But if you get nervous because it is a fearful thing to stand before a group of God's people and say, thus saith the
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Lord, it's good to be frightened by that. Very good. And so this morning, the only thing that calms me is if I say,
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Father, my goal, my desire today is to extol and increase the fame of Jesus Christ.
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My responsibility, yes, my privilege and pleasure is to say, here's our great Christ. Look to him.
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See who he is. In this particular case, Matthew chapter six, we look to Christ as he instructs us on a very crucial matter.
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And that crucial matter is the topic of prayer. If you turn your Bibles to Matthew six,
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I would ask you this question. If you had to test your spirituality, how would you test it?
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Some would say, well, open up your checkbook because where your money is, you can certainly find out where your heart is.
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But I believe one of the ultimate tests for your spirituality is found in prayer. Martin Lloyd -Jones said this, there is nothing that tells the truth about us as Christian people so much as our prayer life.
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Everything we do in the Christian life is easier than prayer. It is not so difficult to give alms.
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The natural man knows something about that. And you can have a true spirit of philanthropy in people who are not
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Christian at all. The same applies also to the question of self -discipline, refraining from certain things and taking up particular duties and tasks.
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God knows it is very much easier to preach like this from a pulpit than it is to pray. Prayer is undoubtedly the ultimate test because a man can speak to others with great ease, much more so than he can speak to God.
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If we had to test your Christianity, your spirituality based on your prayer life, how would you do? And for almost all of us, certainly every one of us, we would say,
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I would like to pray with greater devotion, with more regularity, with more sincerity.
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I want to pray, Lord, so you might be honored after all you've done for me, giving us the greatest gift,
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Christ Jesus. And certainly I want to respond with not duty and not just a have to, but I want to respond with love and with thankfulness and,
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God, I want to pray better. And therefore it is so wonderful to come to the text today to see in Matthew chapter 6 how
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Jesus would have us to pray. What would Jesus tell us about prayer? I'm so thankful that he didn't just meet the disciples and say, by the way, you know, figure it out.
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It's kind of some kind of Easter egg hunt. You're getting warmer. No, he says specifically, here's what not to do and here's what to do.
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And you may be surprised that his first instructions are not positive. That is to say they're not prayed this way.
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That's going to be next week in verse 9. Instead he says, you know, the human heart is so sinful that sin, almost like a shadow to a person, can follow the most holy prayer into the throne room of God while he's praying.
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How insidious is sin? Sin can even affect our prayer life. And so Jesus wants to make sure we're not acting like the
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Pharisees or the hypocrites or someone else who says, you know what, it's just all external ritual. Jesus wants us to pray from the heart and he wants us to pray properly.
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And we know from last week that the key to this kind of prayer is found in one word. And what would that word be? If you had to give one word that Jesus summarizes in Matthew chapter 6 to say it will change your ritualistic, sacerdotal, sacramental, legalistic forms of religion, what is that one word?
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He says, I want you to think about God as what? Father. That's exactly right. Unheard of, calling
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God Father in the Old Testament personally, it might have been a name for Israel as a nation, but used very infrequently.
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And here in the New Testament, we have almost the sluice gates of the word Father opened up over 200 times,
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Father. Think of God as Father and it will affect the way you give, the way you pray, and the disciples' particular case, the way you fast.
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If God is your Father, it will affect the way you pray. My purpose this morning is very clear, is to teach you
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Matthew chapter 6, verses 5 -8, so that when you pray, you'll think that God is my
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Father and not just a Father, but a rewarding Father. God rewards His children when they pray.
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You say, well, we kind of did this last week, didn't we? Well, we just got the first part last week and I think this is so revolutionary that I'm just going to pitch the tent here in Matthew chapter 6, verses 5 -8, and until the pillar of cloud leads us further,
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I'm just going to stay here. And you say, well, now you have a Mother's Day sermon about God our Father? What could thrill a mother's soul more than hearing about God the
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Father? I mean, I ran out of Hannah sermons about 20 years ago. Well, not quite 20.
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He said, Pastor, you've only been a Christian 19 years. Well, that would be true. Look at Matthew chapter 6, verse 1.
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Remember this umbrella. This is what Jesus is after. If you want to understand chapter 6, it all stems from this umbrella principle where He's trying to say the religious leaders of the day are not your guides.
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God must be the guide. Christ incarnate now will guide us. And He says, beware. And that's the key word that flows through this whole section.
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Watch out. Open your eyes. You will be influenced by your peers, by your leaders.
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Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them.
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Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. And then He goes on to talk about how we shouldn't give alms based on what other people will think.
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And then we've moved into the section on prayer. We ought not to pray in a way that forgets that God is
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Father. So what we'll do is review the first three points and expand the fourth.
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If you'd like this morning to know where we're going, we're going to see from Matthew 6, verses 5 through 8, four timeless prayer exhortations from Jesus.
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He's going to tell us two positive things and two negative things that will help us pray that we might realize
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God is our Father, a Father who rewards. Four timeless prayer exhortations.
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I say timeless for this reason. They were good for the disciples and they're good for us as well. They'll be good to teach your kids and your grandkids.
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Timeless prayer exhortations from Jesus Himself. The first one found in verse 5.
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If you'd like to honor God with your prayers, number one, don't forget that God is your Father. Otherwise, you might be tempted to pray hypocritically or you might pray so that you might be seen.
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How crazy does that sound? But people do that. Verse 5, when you pray, you're not to be like the hypocrites.
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What do the hypocrites do? They love to stand and pray in the synagogues. They would raise their hands up, kind of this upward posture, and they would be there and it would be perfect time for noon prayers and they would get themselves strategically placed.
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You see the text. Pray in the synagogues and on the street corners. They had one purpose.
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So other people would watch them so that they may be seen by men. Their motive was not honor, dependence, glory, magnifying
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God for what He had done, not only in the Exodus, but also in their own lives and as a nation.
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No, they wanted to be seen by men and you know what? They got their reward. Look at what Jesus said. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward in full.
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If you want to get when you pray from other people, you'll get it. But certainly, there's nothing from the Father. It's not 50 -50.
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It's all or nothing. No ulterior motives, Jesus is basically saying.
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I just find it amazing that sin is so bad it trickles into prayer. It's one thing if it trickles into the gutter and into the jails and into crime -ridden places, but here it's in prayer, where people are on their knees before God.
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Pascal, no Christian, said, man is great insofar as he is wretched.
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Russian author, Turn to Give, says, I do not know what the heart of a bad man is like, but I do know what the heart of a good man is like and it is terrible.
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And so Jesus is saying, with love, with compassion, with truth, saying, you can't pray in such a way that you're worried about other people because he knows we will do it if we're not careful, making some exhibit, some stage or platform to be seen by men.
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And Jesus says, you want to be heard by the Father, not seen by men. Well, how would that affect us?
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Let me just give you a couple practical helps. One is, when you pray and you have other people in a prayer group, which is fine, you don't want a gossip prayer.
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Have you ever heard kind of those gossip prayers, where you're really trying to inform other people about what's going on? Dear Lord, you know, would you please assist
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Lucy and stop seeing that married man? You know, the one she met at work last week? This kind of stuff.
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You laugh, but that's what happens. We used to have a prayer chain at the church, but the prayer chain turns into what?
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Oh, you hear about that? I think we could even extract a principle from this in terms of wondering who hears our prayers.
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Fathers, especially, when you sit down at a meal at home, it's very easy to say, okay, kids, let's bow and pray.
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But how about at Denny's? How about some place where you go, where you're going to eat and you're like, well, you know,
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I wonder if somebody might hear us? Oh, you know, the waitress is coming over. We pray to God if anybody sees us, fine.
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If they think that makes us look crazy, wait till we open our mouths to them and they'll really think we're bonkers.
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And one of the things I think this verse itself should help us realize is that we need help in prayer.
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It would be a very good prayer to say, God, I need help to pray righteously.
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I don't even pray well, so God help me pray. It's easy to say, look at these
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Pharisees. Look at these scribes. Look at these pagans. I renounce them. I denounce them. I don't want anything to do with them.
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That's easy to do. But I think this passage shows us that sin can sneak in to our prayers as we approach
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God himself and we want to be clean and holy vessels before God as we pray. Number two, not only should we pray in a way to be heard by God and not seen, but secondly, we ought to pray knowing
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God is our father so that we will pray sincerely. Pray sincerely. The first one was don't pray hypocritically.
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The second one is let's pray sincerely. Verse six, but you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close the door and pray to your father who is in secret and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
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And now it turns to singular language. It used to be plural. Now it's singular. When you pray, go into your inner room and you say, pastor,
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I know some of the houses back in those days when the Tebowls and I went to Israel with some other families, we would have a mock house from 2000 years ago and you walk in, there's only one room.
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How does a Jew go into their house that has one room and go into the inner room? Well, they don't, but the idea is find a place where you can get away from it all and pray so you're not thinking about other people.
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So your mind and your attitude, your motives are not, oh, I hope other people think I'm holy when
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I pray. And when you pray, you pray to your father who sees in secret.
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The one who sees in secret, then amazingly, do you see the text? Rewards openly.
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And the text doesn't tell us what the rewards are. I think there could be several rewards. One reward would be you could spend time with the
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Lord who would be the best reward. Wouldn't that be the best reward? Communion with almighty God. Another answer, another reward could be answered prayer.
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Jesus said in John 14, whatever you ask in my name that I will do that the father may be glorified in the son.
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And maybe also a good byproduct of answer prayer would be a changed heart as we spend time with the father.
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When I've been praying this week, here's what I've been doing in light of what I've learned. I don't immediately bow my head and say, dear father.
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I bow my head, I think for a moment, and I remember what Torrey said. We should never utter one syllable of prayer either in public or in private until we are definitely conscious that we have come into the presence of God and are actually praying to him.
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I'm walking now, as it were, into the throne room of God. I'm having an audience with the king one on one, and therefore it's going to affect what
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I say, how I say things. Number three, found in verse seven.
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How do we pray? How do we honor God with our prayers? Well, we don't want to be seen by others.
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We want to pray sincerely. Now consider number three. Don't forget
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God is your rewarding father or you might pray with meaningless repetition. You might be influenced by the pagans who have to wake their
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God up. Olly olly, I'll come free and ring the bell and wake him up. He's busy.
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Pagan gods are busy doing other things. They're fighting, they're carousing, they're sinning, they're busy.
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They might be sleeping, they might be taking a nap. We've got to wake this God up. Jesus said in verse seven, when you're praying, do not use meaningless repetition.
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So he's after the content. If God is your father, it will affect the content of your prayers because the unbelievers or the
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Gentiles or the pagans do that. How do you get a God's attention, a pagan God's attention?
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For they suppose that they will be heard by their poly words, their many words, their verbosity.
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So you can ask yourself this question, will my prayer be more effective by what I repeat?
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Is there a certain kind of way to do it? If I could just kind of pray this prayer, then God will hear me in a better way.
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What do the pagans do? They babble. They're trying to manipulate God through saying, and here's the word that they would say.
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Jesus says both with form and with substance, don't just say bada, bada, bada, bada, bada all the time.
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You ever heard somebody speak in a different language? When Kim and I and the kids were in Europe, we went to all these different countries and we drive into Poland one day and drive into the
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Czech Republic the next day and I just listen to these people talk. We go to Belgium and these other countries and what do they sound like they're saying?
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Even though they're smarter than I am because I speak one language poorly and three other languages just barely to count to 10, they're speaking three languages, but it sounds like they're saying what?
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That they're just stammering, bada, bada, bada, bada. I don't know what they're saying, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. I mean, you know, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.
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I don't know. They think that word bada comes from a
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Greek poet who just talked all the time and had long speeches saying the same thing over and over and over again, droning on and on.
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It's kind of like if you blather enough and have enough gibberish, you can finally coax this
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God. It's kind of like you think, you know, my dad, my personal dad would drink all the time and so he'd come home from work, he'd be sober when he got home and he just drank until he went to bed.
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You can just see the little 10 -year -old boy, Mike, pulling on dad's shirt saying, can we go play some basketball, dad?
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And if I just keep doing it long enough and hard enough, I might kind of arouse this sleeping giant up so he could play catch with me or something.
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Our prayer does not inform God. He already knows, correct? Our prayer does not persuade
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God. He's already given us the greatest gift, Christ. He doesn't need persuading. Our prayer does not obligate
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God. Oh God, I prayed that, you've got to answer. And our prayer certainly ought not to manipulate God with some kind of magical incantation so now
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God is under our spell. You know, some of the pagan gods, they would say things to the pagan gods in such a way that the pagan gods were bound to do what they said.
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Some kind of bippity -boppity -boo kind of talk, you know? You know you're crazy when in your sermon notes you actually have written bippity -boppity -boo.
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You just think, what am I doing? What kind of God would have to be coaxed, an uncaring
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God? What kind of God would have to be shaken with many words and boisterous howlings?
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A God who doesn't care, a God who's never cared, a God who's a demon. You don't badger
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God and cajole him, intimidate him. God hears our prayers. That's the God we serve.
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Long prayers don't arouse God. How about this for a verse that kind of really is counter to this pagan babbling many words?
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Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God for God is in heaven and you are on earth.
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Therefore, let your words be. It's okay to pray short prayers, brief prayers.
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God hears. He always hears. How about this brief prayer by Moses? Was God pleased with this prayer?
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But now, oh God, if you will forgive their sin, if not blot me out of your book which you have written.
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That was a very pleasing prayer to God. How about Solomon? He acknowledges
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God and then he says, so give your servant an understanding heart to judge your people, to discern between good and evil, for who is able to judge this great people of yours?
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And that short pithy prayer to God was pleasing in God's sight, 1
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Kings 3 says. Even the prayer that Jesus will give as a template prayer in verses 9 and following is a relatively short prayer, isn't it?
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You don't see a bunch of badgering and you know, a weak point shout kind of thing here and get his attention.
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I'd like you to turn your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 18 and let me give you an illustration of what people do who do not have
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God as a father. They will beg, borrow and steal for God to listen. And here we have the gunfight at the
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O .K. Carmel, if you will, if I'm really going to get crazy this morning. Here's the gunfight at the mountain ridge of Carmel and you know it's between the
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God, false God, Baal and the real God, Yahweh, who we now know as a great triune
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God, Father, Son and Spirit. And there's a man named Elijah. You know the story, but here's what
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I want you to do. This is the illustration to the verse in Matthew and so see if you can find in this section things that Jesus says to do or not to do.
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And you'll see how silly it looks in other people so we might learn from that and not do it ourselves.
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1 Kings chapter 18, so Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, jumping into this test, choose one ox for yourself, prepare it first for you or many.
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By the way, it's home court advantage. There's lots of you and only one of me so you get to go first. You apply to your deity first.
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And prepare it first for there are many and call on the name of your God, but put no fire under it. Verse 26, then they took the ox which was given them and they prepared it, packed it up, slaughtered it, called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, oh
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Baal, answer us. Three hours. How would you like to pray that? What are you thinking after about 30 minutes?
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Oh Baal, answer us. Oh Baal, answer us. Oh Baal, answer us. Oh Baal, answer us. Now, how many people are singing this?
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450. And you can just see at the beginning you kind of just start off because you want to act kind of cool and oh
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Baal, answer us. After three hours, 450 are chanting. This is loud chanting,
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God please wake up. But there was, and look at the text.
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There was no voice and no one answered. So they got to go a little farther.
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If God is in your father, if God doesn't exist, you've got all kinds of shenanigans that need to be employed to get
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God to answer you. So why don't we try this? How about if God won't take the sacrifice, the bull on the altar, we'll jump up and down in kind of horrible sexual dancing on top of the altar and we'll pretend like we're the sacrifice now.
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So they, what does the text say, leaped about on the altar, which they had made. One man said, they danced around it with strange and hideous cries and gesticulations, tossing their heads to and fro with a great variety of bodily contortions.
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We will do anything to get this God to answer us. And it came about at noon, verse 27, that Elijah, God love him, mocked them and said, call out with a loud voice, for he is a
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God. Either he's occupied or gone aside or on a journey or perhaps asleep and needs to be awakened.
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He's hit the snooze alarm is what he's done. He's busy. Maybe he's fighting some other battle. Better make a great noise, get the cymbals out, do something.
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There's even a little bit in this language where one commentary says, he's occupied, literally he's going to the bathroom.
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So here's Elijah saying, you're calling out for three hours, jumping up and down like fools because a fool has said in his heart, there's no
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God or worship false God. And maybe he's in the loo. Maybe that's where he is. This is contempt.
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I think maybe you're God's death, so you better shout out. Well, maybe that's a good idea.
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Elijah, verse 28. So they cried out with a loud voice and cut themselves according to their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out of them.
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Can you imagine having an earthly father? Hey, dad, you know, I've got a request. I didn't have anything to eat today and I'd love a sandwich.
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Well, if you won't listen, let's see, here's a good idea. Why don't I take a butcher knife and start cutting myself? Hey, dad,
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I mean, it is just so ridiculous. Maybe blood sacrifices with the bulls won't arouse
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God, but maybe my own. Of course, God's law had said earlier in the Mosaic Law, Leviticus 19, you shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead or anyone else.
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Can you imagine the blood that's all over these 450 people? Smeared all over, caked all over, basting themselves with their own blood, hot blood.
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Verse 29. Remember, they started at nine, then at noon, now from noon to midday, three o 'clock, when it came about when midday was passed that they raved until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice.
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But there was, look at the three no's. There was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention.
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After all that, all that prayer, all their many words, I mean, think how hoarse they must have been.
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What is Elijah doing, by the way, sitting there, just looking around, just in amazement of these people?
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Is he praying, God, please don't let them have any fire come down?
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Do you think if Satan was allowed to send fire down through this false God system to have these prophets of Baal win the argument and fight against Elijah, do you think if Satan was allowed to do it, he would have?
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And here, over and over and over, frantically saying things, but there's no
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God. No God who's like a father. Hear us, O Baal.
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Matthew Henry said they hoped by their dancing to please their deity as Herodias did Herod, and so obtained their request.
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And then we know the all -seeing God of Elijah, the all -knowing God of Elijah, the
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God who's a consuming fire, God of Elijah, did what? Answered. And the day was won.
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Let's go back to Matthew chapter six. We don't need to pray this way. Why? Because God's a father.
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He's a good father. He's a father who rewards. He's the rewarder of sincere prayer, and without faith, it's impossible to please him, the writer of the
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Hebrew says, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him, the great
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God who's a rewarding father. That's who you pray to. Not a reluctant God, not a
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God who's stingy, and we'll find that out. Number four, the fourth timeless prayer practice. We don't want to pray hypocritically.
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We do want to pray sincerely. We don't want to just pray and say to God, I'm going to get your attention by what
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I say meaninglessly, repetitively. Number four, we'd like to pray as Jesus would teach us to pray.
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We need to remember, you need to remember, that God is your all -knowing father.
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Pray like God is your all -knowing father, and that he rewards his children.
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Verse eight, verse eight, Matthew 6 .8, so do not be like them. He summarizes verses six and seven and five.
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Four, what's the reason why we ought not to be like them? For your father knows what you need before you ask.
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Can you imagine? Your father knows what you need before you ask. People say, well, then why do you pray?
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If God knows what you need before you ask and he's a rewarder of those who seek him, why pray? Why pray at all?
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Why inform him? Arthur Pink said, we pray unto God for the purpose of honoring him, acknowledge him to be the knower of our hearts and the giver of all mercies.
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That's right. We come to God in confidence saying, I know you know all my needs, but I come anyway with communion, with dependence, with acknowledgement that you're the great
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God and father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is your pleasure to please your children with good things for them and things that will glorify your name.
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God already knows what we need before we go. He's not ignorant. We don't go to God. He said, wow,
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I didn't know that. That is unbelievable. I'm also thankful when we come to God as father, he doesn't say, you know, by the way,
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I've just come to my memory that I remember back there in 1968, those things you've done, and then now you're going to ask me for these things.
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He already knew it all. He's already paid for it all. God already knows what we need, and yet he still says, pray.
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God knows what we need more than we need, than what we think we need, better than ourselves.
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God is omniscient. With that in mind, I'd like you to turn to Psalm 139.
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Psalm 139, I want to remind you that God knows what you need before you ask because he's this omniscient
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God. He knows everything. We come to God because it's a duty, it's a pleasure, it's a privilege.
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We can come to this God and cry to our heart's content because he knows exactly who we are.
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Psalm 139, God knows everything. He knows everything effortlessly and equally well, one man said.
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Psalm 139, this is the God who you pray to if you're a Christian.
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Psalm 139, you have searched me and known me, O Lord. Here's David praying this to God.
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God knows David like an open book. He knows all about David, and God has searched him. You know where that word search comes from, is to dig.
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That word search is when I go to Logan and all of a sudden I'm picking up my bags in an international flight, and I see some kind of, it's either a basset hound or some beagle.
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Maybe it's a beagle. Come walking, yeah, it'd have to be a beagle. Come walking around, sniffing in people's bags, and I'm thinking,
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I hope the dog doesn't smell my 99 % dark chocolate that I've got over there, but that's legal.
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With some kind of examination, exploring, digging, that's the idea. Searching out.
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God has searched out David to the core, and he knows all about David, and he knows all about you as well.
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The same word in the Old Testament is used for to spy out. The sons of Dan were sent out to spy out the land.
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He knows, microscopically. And by the way, David, what was David's position in life?
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A king. Kings didn't have to tell people about themselves. They didn't have to say their name to people.
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They didn't have to disclose any information unless they wanted to, so much so that Proverbs 25 says, as the heavens for height and the earth for depth, so the heart of the kings is unsearchable.
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You can't even search a king's heart. If you're a human, you try to understand what a king's going to do or say, you have no clue.
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But God, he knows. He searches. He searched me, and look at the text, and he knows me.
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Divine discernment. And yet he still says, come, approach. He knows all the dirt, all the thoughts, all the sin.
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And he says, I know you, and you come anyway. I know what you did with Bathsheba. I know all these other things, but you're forgiven, and you come.
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God knows. That knowing is closeness, an intimate knowing. You know, your wife, same kind of language.
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It's not just God is aware of, but he deeply knows. So much so that Hannah prayed that God is a
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God of knowledges. Did you hear that? God is a God of knowledge, but Hannah knows how omnipresent God is, so she says,
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God, I bow my head to you, and I extol you by saying you're a God of knowledges. No recall.
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No random access memory. He knows it all. Get this paragraph by Tozer.
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God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all creatures, every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every unuttered secret, all thrones and dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible in heaven and in earth, motion, space, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven and hell.
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God knows it all, and he says, I want you to approach me. How would you like to approach a God like that? I probably couldn't even approach the president without getting caught in the mouth.
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And look at the extent of God's knowledge. The heavenly father who knows you, when you pray, to what degree does he know us?
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Verse two, he knows what we do. He knows exactly what you have done. You know, when
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I sit down and when I rise up, Psalm 139, verse two, when
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I sit down, my passive life, God, you know, when I rest and relax and sleep and you know, my active life, when
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I rise up, when I stand and walk and drive and shop and everything in between, you know, it all, nothing is lost.
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Nothing is overlooked. You know, everything God knows what's been done to you.
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God knows what you've done to others. For good and for bad. And God says, that's how much I know you, but not just that.
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Look at the text in verse two. God doesn't just know what you do, but your heavenly father knows what you think.
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This is an amazing thing to me. You understand my thought from afar.
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God, you perceive what I think with intenseness, with thoroughness, with discernment.
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Deuteronomy 31 says, I know their intent. Jesus in Luke 11 says he knew their thoughts from afar.
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And one man who didn't have a lot of good theology, but he said this truly, Henry Ward Beecher, before men, we stand as glass beehives.
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But before God, we are what the Egyptians call, God is what the Egyptians called the eye of the wind.
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Well, let's keep going. Look at verse three. How well does this God know us? When we approach God and ask for things, this great rewarding
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God, what if he finds something he doesn't like? Or he doesn't understand all my life situations.
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God knows what you do. God knows what you think. Now found in verse three, God knows where you go. God knows where you go.
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He knows where you have gone. Thou does scrutinize my path, verse three, and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
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He knows everything. Scrutinize is to winnow, scrutinize is to filter, is to get the chaff away from the wheat and just get in there with your fingers, with intimacy.
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Everywhere we go. And did you know, verse four, God knows what you will say? Even before there's a word on my tongue,
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David said, behold, oh, Lord, Yahweh, you know it all. You know what I'm going to say.
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When we pray, God knows what we're going to say. Just think about this for a second. I'm always amazed when
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I go overseas with all these different people that speak different languages. How would you like to take every person that's on this earth now?
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Let's just say they're all Christians for sake of argument. They're speaking 6 ,000 different languages and they can all come to God at exactly the same time and cry their hearts out to God.
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And God says, I hear them all. I understand it all. I've already known you. I've known what you're going to think. I know what you're going to ask for.
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And I just compliment the whole thing. I can't even sit around the house being on the phone and have the kids playing in the background without doing the kind of the silent finger snap.
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Finger snap at my house means you better knock that off. There's going to be more than a finger snap. But if I'm on the phone, you might know my secret code, finger snap.
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So I can't make a sound out of the finger snap. So I'm like, I can't process it all.
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It's too much. Too much going on. It's like with kids when they drive. The stereo's got to be off, windows up, no talking, no looking around, hands in 10 and 2 position, and off you go.
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Don't do anything extra. God knows everybody, every thought. You would be famous if you can figure out what's going on in this room today if you knew everybody's thoughts.
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Look at the text. Before there's a word on my tongue, God, you know it all. God knows.
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I don't think you'd invent this kind of God if you were an unbeliever. I don't think you'd invent a God who is omniscient because he knows everything.
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And by the way, that's an immutable, unchangeable omniscience where he never forgets.
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He always remembers. But if you have an omniscient father, doesn't that comfort and round out the hard edges of an omniscient
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God? Because he's an omniscient. Fifthly, he says in Psalm 139 verse 5, do you know that your
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Heavenly Father knows what you need? And this is directly related to Matthew chapter 6. I'm sure Jesus was well -versed in the
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Psalms. That's an understatement since he's God incarnate, part of the Godhead. But look, your
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Heavenly Father knows what you need before you pray. He knows what's best.
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Verse 5, thou hast enclosed me behind and before and laid thy hand upon me.
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Before David needed any protection, God had hedged him in. God had protected him. God had wrapped his arms around him, hedged like a city under siege.
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He knew exactly what David needed. He laid his hand of protection. He laid his hand of blessing figuratively upon David.
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And knowing all this in Psalm 39, if you had to respond and say, if this is true, this is who God is, how do we respond?
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How do I pray differently if God knows it all? God knows my best. God accepts me with sin and all because I've been forgiven by Christ.
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How does that affect me? Well, look, verse 6 tells us, such knowledge is too wonderful for me.
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How do we respond to a God like that? Answer. What's the response?
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It's too awesome. It's too wonderful. I can't figure it out. And by the way, wonderful in the Hebrew is emphatically placed in the language.
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So this is just extraordinary. This is surpassing. It's beyond my wildest dreams. God never learned anything.
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And the second response is something our society needs to hear. And we as Christians need to hear it as well.
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It is too high for me. I cannot attain it. I'm not God. I'm unable to be
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God. I acknowledge God that even though I want to be God. Before I was a Christian, I tried to act like God, but I can't be
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God. I can't attain it. John Wesley said, bring me a worm that can comprehend a man.
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And then I will show you a man that can comprehend the triune God. We approach
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God, our father in prayer. And we should approach him with amazement and astonishment that he knows everything.
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He doesn't learn anything. We don't have to inform him. We don't have to coax and cajole and badger.
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We just say, God, you're a good father. You know everything I need. And here's what I'm doing in my prayer.
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I'm acknowledging that you know what I need. And I'm acknowledging that in your own free will, the only free will that exists in the universe, you freely give me what you will because it will be the best for me.
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And it will give your name glory. And I come to you just a glad recipient of your mercy.
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I know what I deserve. You know what I deserve. And yet Christ has paid for what I deserve.
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And now I have free access to you. And God, you're my father. And since you're my father, you're such a good father.
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I don't even have to say really what I need. I will say it because you like to hear my dependence. But I acknowledge that you are the
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God of all comfort. And I'm comforted now because I come to such a father. I come in confidence because I can trust in who you are.
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I come with courage because your holiness has been poured out on your son.
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Praying with God as father. John Calvin said regarding this approaching
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God as father, rather they pray to alert themselves to seek him, to exercise their faith.
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When Christians pray to God, they don't inform him. They want to exercise their faith by meditating upon his promises, unburdening their cares by lifting themselves into his bosom.
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Finally, they pray to testify that from him alone, all good for themselves and for others is hoped for and asked.
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I got to pray this week, matter of fact, and it was so great. There's a bunch of chickenpox going around caused by some unnamed family here at the church.
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My two little girls are better now. But Luke had it a couple weeks ago. And now Gracie and Maddie have it.
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And they come running in. The virus starts coming through them. We thought, you know, it's supposed to get better, the second kid and third kid in your house.
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It's supposed to be not as intense, rather. Gracie just didn't look good. And she, we called the doctor and he said, well, are there a hundred or more pockmarks on Gracie?
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You mean on her face is what I wanted to say, because they're all over, blisters. I said, well, you better bring her in.
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So we brought her in. And in my mind, I'm thinking, I know just enough about medicine to know that you can die from anything, right?
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You know, you take an aspirin and some people are allergic from aspirin. And, you know, c 'est la vie kind of thing.
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Now, I didn't mean that, you know, love looks for good motives.
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So long story short, you know, we learn something from the pulpit in our own Bible study and then the Lord lets us live it out, right?
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That's what I hope you will do this week is say, God helped me pray this week like you're my father.
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I'm purposely parking the pulpit in this section because I think it's life -changing to think of God as father.
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So I thought to myself, all right, Gracie's bad. She's supposed to be better than Luke. She's worse than Luke.
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And now off to the doctor. And they said, you know what? We need to put her in the hospital because she's so dehydrated. Kim's like, can we do anything besides that?
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Yeah, make her drink lots of liquids and eat lots of popsicles. Okay, we'll do the popsicle route.
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So we did that. And there's all kinds of pox down her throat. She can't eat. And all of a sudden the day later, now
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Maddie gets them. And I just thought, you could die from anything. You could die from something besides chicken pox.
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And I need some help. I know it's wrong to worry. I know it's a sin to have anxiety.
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I know the antonym of anxiety is trust, et cetera, et cetera. And I just need some help. I'm standing there right in the kitchen going, the first thing
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I thought of by the spirits prompting I'm sure was, if I could just talk to my dad about things, it'd be better.
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You know, sometimes you just talk to your dad. You don't even have to have anything change. But just when I could talk to my dad and I'd just be confident, dad's in charge.
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Dad knows he's got it all figured out. And really on the earthly sense, he didn't know.
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He couldn't figure it out. He just had a hope. He didn't even know God the Father. But now if I could just talk to my dad,
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I said, okay, Heavenly Father, I don't have a dad, but I have you. And I just need some help.
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I need help for my own spiritual walk right now because I'm the dad. I just got done preaching the sermon about God as Father.
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And God, you know what's going on with the girls. It's been a privilege and a pleasure to have these girls for this seven to nine years.
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If I lose them, I lose them. They're your kids. I'm steward anyway. And I just have to say, God, you know what's best.
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And I'm coming independent, independency upon your good grace that you will do the best.
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You'll talk to the right doctors. We'll get everything done and my girls will be fine. I don't believe that some kind of weird wave came over me and I just kind of feel it.
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Some kind of soul tsunami thing over my heart or something. But I just felt better.
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I was comforted because the Lord directed my thoughts to God. And guess what happens with your feelings?
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They follow your thoughts. They are the caboose to your feelings. That's why you don't ever want to go by your feelings because your heart is deceitful.
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You can't trust yourself. But I thought I can trust the Lord. And then exactly what happens to Philippians chapter four was in my life.
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And the peace that passes what? All understand the statistics didn't change. The medicine didn't change.
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My kids' pockmarks didn't change. Nothing changed. I'm very happy that the children are alive, obviously.
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But even if they didn't survive, God isn't deaf. And I don't need to holler to wake him up.
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God cares. And anytime anyone ever says, God, how could you allow that? You don't care.
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Then they need to be reminded of Calvary because God does care. Roman chapter five makes it clear.
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God demonstrates his love for us. While we were yet sinners, what happened? Christ died for us.
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If that's not love, then I don't know what is love. And Paul uses the argument later in Roman chapter five.
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If God gives the greatest gift, he'll give every other gift. And I find it amazing that we don't even need to know that God was a father.
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For God to act fatherly. You get that God could act like our father, but nobody could ever have told us.
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And we would find out when we get to heaven. God cares for you like a father. Yet Jesus says,
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I'm going to tell you that now because it should rock your world. It should change you. Our father knows what we need and he rewards us.
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Forget praying in front of people. I could care less. Spare me. Forget praying, you know, some kind of repetition.
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This is real life. Heavenly father, help. Help Gracie.
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Heavenly father. I know you care for Karen, my wife helper. Heavenly father. I have no job.
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I want to provide for my kids. Help me. I honor you. You know what's best. I will bow my knee to your goodness.
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And I close with Ephesians chapter three. If you'll just flip over there. I'm not going to exposit it, but I'm going to show you that Paul learned at the hands of Jesus Christ himself at his very feet.
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Ephesians chapter three. Here is Paul's prayer for his people. The church, his people, small
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H. How does Paul pray? You think Paul learned from Jesus? I think he did.
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Ephesians chapter three, verse 14. What is a mountain peak of scripture?
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I would imagine. For this reason, I bow my knees before.
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The father with religious devotion, submission and homage with seriousness.
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That's what the kneeling is. But I come before the father. Literally, the text says face to face before the father with boldness as a child.
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From whom every verse 15 family in heaven and earth derives its name. And I'm going to pray for the people at Ephesus and all the other churches for three things.
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I'm going to pray to this great, concerning, rewarding, comforting God of Jesus Christ.
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He says, I'm going to pray number one, that God would give strength to other people. That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory and to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man.
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Why? So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That Christ may be settled down and be at home in your hearts.
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Then Paul prays to this great father God who loves to reward his people. He prays that Christ's love might be better apprehended and appreciated by the people.
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And that you, verse 17, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth.
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And to know the love of God, which surpasses knowledge. Oh God, the father, would you help these people appreciate
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Christ's love more? Would you help them grasp it better? Would you help them comprehend the
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Latin word is prehensile, tail wrap around like a monkey would wrap around a tree to put all its weight and strength.
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Applied there. Would you let them make Christ's love be their own? And then thirdly, he prays to the heavenly father who loves to reward his people.
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That God might grant maturity to the other Christians. Verse 19, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
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That God, that they may be dominated by your greatness. Every thought held captive.
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And then he says to the father, you know these verses. Now to him who was able to do far more abundantly beyond what we could ask or think.
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According to the power that works within us. To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.
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And the answer is amen. Let's pray please bow with me. Thank you father for this day to set and to just think for a moment that you're our father.
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Our heavenly father. Our all knowing father. It's good to just be still and know that you're our
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God. Thank you for that. Would you help us to pray this week in light of who you are?
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Would you help us to have a single -minded determination to pray for others. Pray for ourselves knowing that you're a
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God who rewards. We praise you for Christ Jesus. Not just a sacrificial work. Not just his resurrection.
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Not just his promise of soon return. But that he would teach us to pray. Thank you for that.
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And Lord we long for the day where we're face to face with you. And see you for who you are.
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Lord I pray for even this sermon today. That you would help us not to pray hypocritically.
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That your spirit would energize us to pray sincerely. And knowing that you're our father. Help us in Jesus name.