Sermon Tone Analysis
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*The Privilege of Prayer*
*What has God said to you this week?
Have you heard Him? Has he answered your prayers?
Have you heard the answer?*
* *
*How often do we rush through a two or five-minute prayer TO God each day or less, and then wonder why we don’t get what we want?
We then go off pouting that God doesn’t care, or maybe he’s busy, or some other foolish thing.
When in reality, we show we don’t know how to pray, because we don’t know how to listen.
Very few people in our culture today really listen to each other.
Instead, we half-listen, looking for an opportunity to say what’s on our mind – our opinion – or our need.
And when the conversation has ended, we have no idea what the other person is talking about!
And we then wonder why God seems to not be answering our prayer.
God created us with two ears, but only one mouth.
We should take this to heart and listen twice as much as we talk.*
* *
There once was a man who was trapped in his house during a flood.
He continually prayed to God to deliver him.
As the waters rose, a man in a canoe came by and offered to take him to safety.
He replied that he was going to be okay and that God was going to deliver him.
So the man went on his way.
Soon after another man in a motor-boat came along with several people in his boat that he had rescued and offered the man a ride to safety.
Again the man replied that he was going to be delivered by God.
The water continued to rise, forcing the man had to climb up onto the roof of his house to avoid the water.
A helicopter came along and stopped overhead and the pilot told the man the rushing waters were about to get a whole lot worse and that if he would climb up the ladder and he would fly him to dry land.
Again he responded that he was going to be okay and that God would deliver him.
The flood waters rose and eventually the swift current swept him away and he drowned.
Upon arriving in heaven, the first thing he asked God was why, after all of his prayers for deliverance, had God not delivered him from the rushing waters.
God replied, “Oh, but I tried.
I sent you the canoe, the motor-boat and the helicopter.”
*The man had not heard what God was trying to tell him.*
*Often we pray and seem to receive no response, but in reality God is always speaking to us.
*
*Yet due to our refusal to calm down and listen, we can’t hear what he says.
Sometimes we don’t pray because we don’t know how to.
OR we try to pray, but all that comes out is a litany of things we want or think we need – most of which are not in line with the will of God for our lives.*
*The Apostle James writes about this in James 4:2-3,*
*“You do not have, because you do not ask God.
When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
“*
*I did this early on in my walk with the Lord after God brought me out of my rebellion.
I would spend time praying and mostly it was about 20 to 25 minutes of telling God stuff, and then maybe listening for a minute.
God didn’t say much to me back then.
Or so I thought.*
* *
*So what does God expect?
How can we break through in our difficulties and struggles?
How can we be assured of His care for us if it doesn’t seem like we are able to tap into the divine?*
David, the Psalmist tells us
“The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous
and his ears are attentive to their cry” or prayer as Peter restates it in 1 Peter 3:12.
*St.
Paul knew well the struggles that we have in our prayer life and walk with the Lord.
He writes to the churches as one who has been in the desert; struggling with God, struggling to hear God.
He had been through the trials and at the end of it all, he could say he had fought the good fight in the upward calling of God.
Why?
He learned how to listen to God. *
* *
*Remember, Paul, who before he started his ministry, was struck by God with sudden blindness.
For three days he fasted and prayed alone until God sent someone to his aid, someone who knew who Paul was and that he could have him executed for being a believer.
Can you imagine trying to connect to the God of the universe after he blinds you and let’s you sit for three days in that blindness?
Especially if you were a good Pharisee that kept the Law of God?*
* *
*How many times have we gone about our life thinking because we are a good person, and because we go to church, or help someone in need that God will always take care of us – regardless of how much we pray?
While this is partly true, God in his wisdom many times let’s things occur in our lives that we don’t quite see as “caring” for us at the time.
But he allows these things so that we will turn to him and seek him in prayer and so that he can change our hearts.. *
* *
*If we really want to hear God, prayer should be more listening than talking.
We need to center ourselves…quiet our minds so that we can concentrate on God and hearing His voice.
We need to eliminate the clutter, find a quiet place, turn off the TV or Radio so that it can’t interfere with the signal we want to establish with God.
All the clutter that prevents us from hearing God is like putting the microphone that father Matt wears too close to the speakers here and all we get is a lot of feedback and we can’t hear what he is saying.
It is the same thing with prayer - when we allow all the other distractions to interfere with our prayer time, we can’t get the signal clear.
*
* *
*In the old days of TV antennas, if someone had a HAM radio close by, often times it would distort the picture and sound and we couldn’t watch TV until the interfering signal stopped.
It’s the same with prayer.
Only when we get quieted down and listen can we hear the voice of God speaking to us.
He is always speaking to us – into our lives, we just don’t stop long enough to listen hear Him. *
*Martin Luther declared, “ I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer.”*
*In addition to listening, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us while He works to train our thoughts to the thoughts of God.
It is important to realize that we have one primary purpose on earth – to allow God to reshape us and to conform us to the likeness of His Son, Jesus.
This is where the Holy Spirit steps in to intercede for us, since we do not know how to pray God’s will.
Constantly He works in us as He intercedes for us, molding and shaping our will toward that of God our Father.
As we listen and quiet ourselves, we begin to hear the small voice of the Holy Spirit’s promptings in certain areas of our life and we learn the direction God wants us to go.
This takes time to learn how to do, but scripture is clear that we are to work to that end.
*
* *
*The importance of our need to pray cannot be stressed enough.
In the seminary course I am currently taking, prayer is the central element in the disciplines of the faith.
In the seminary book I am reading right now, BEGINNING SPIRITUAL DIRECTION by David Rosage, he notes that “Our prayer helps us acknowledge our own poverty of spirit and our dire need for God’s guidance.
It also generates within us a hunger and desire that His preferences be fulfilled in us.”*
*We need to pray because we are in dire need of God’s guidance – especially today as we navigate the conflicting claims to true Christian faith.
*
* *
*Jesus teaches us to pray with the Lord’s prayer.
Throughout the Gospels he instructs on all kinds of prayer.
He himself is the model of getting to a quiet place to be with His Father on a regular basis, and I would bet he did it a whole lot more than is recorded in scripture.
*
\\ In Matthew chapter 6, vs.5 he says:
"And when you pray , do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.”
Notice that he says “WHEN” you pray, not if you pray.
It is assumed that the command to pray regularly to God will be the cornerstone of every Christian’s walk of faith.
In Matt 6:6-8
“But when you pray , go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.
Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
And when you pray , do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
In Luke 6:28 He says:
“bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
“
He taught us to get away and pray.
In Matt 14:23, Mark 6:46, Luke 6:12 and Luke 9:28 it says he went away to a mountainside to pray.
He often left the others to find a solitary place where he could be with His Father.
\\ He prayed all night on at least one occasion.
In Luke 6:12 it says,
“Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray , and spent the night praying to God.”
He taught us to be persistent in our prayers.
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