Title Prayer (1) (2/17/2008, Sermon series by topic 3)
Prayer(1)
prayer
Matthew 7:7-11
7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Which of you, if your son asks for bread, gives you a stone, 10 if your son asks for a fish, he will give you a snake? 11 If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?
He vowed to obey God at every difficult stage of missionary work in China and looked to the faithful God who provided everything. The words he left about his prayer life move many people. “The secret to my devotion and happiness lies in how I start my day. The musician tunes the instrument before the concert begins. Would it be foolish to tune after the concert? It starts with getting your thoughts right, and then life becomes rewarding and happy.”
Now we are in the season of Lent. Most of all, Lent is a time to focus on our prayer life and fully turn our bodies and minds toward the Lord. The Bible says this in Hebrews 12:2. “Let us look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” In the NIV Bible, this verse is stated like this: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, who perfects our faith. To look to Him, to learn Him, to walk in His ways. Then our faith becomes perfect by imitating Jesus.
In that sense, our prayer life should also follow the example of Jesus, who is the master and perfecter of our faith. For Jesus, prayer was a spiritual habit of fellowshipping with God the Father. Jesus prayed early in the morning and prayed in the evening. Even after sharing the Last Supper with his disciples, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives to pray. Judas, who knew Jesus' prayer habit, led the Roman soldiers to the Mount of Olives to arrest Jesus.
Luke 21:38 records the moving words of Jesus' prayer life. “The crowds gathered early each morning to hear him.” When Jesus was in Jerusalem, he went to the temple early in the morning to pray. Those who knew the habit of Jesus' prayer went to the temple early in the morning to hear the word of Jesus. The same words are recorded in John 8:2. “He came into the temple again in the morning, and all the people came out. He sat down and taught us... … “It was Jesus' custom to visit the temple at dawn. Those who were hungry for the word of God knew this habit of Jesus and went to the temple to hear the gospel of the kingdom.
Today's sermon is about the prayer Jesus spoke of. Of course, the word prayer never appears in today's verse. Instead, the words “Ask,” “Seek,” “Knock” and “Knock” appear. They are all different expressions of prayer. Prayer is asking, seeking, and knocking. However, people misunderstand this statement. The fundamental misunderstanding about prayer must be resolved first. Otherwise, we are bound to keep praying the wrong prayers.
In the week before Lent, we spoke about worship twice, and in the first week of Lent, the instructor and pastor came. It's not like I'm going to give a lecture. It is to go to God with a proper understanding of prayer and pray. No matter how much knowledge you have about prayer, no matter how good your knowledge is, it is of no use unless you go to God and kneel in prayer.
What many people misunderstand about prayer is that they set up their own thoughts before praying. This is the so-called prayer subject. This is praying, “God, please make this happen.” This is the part we need to get right. There are books that fuel this thought. After reading many books on prayer, they ask you to imagine and draw a picture of what you want in response to prayer. And, with it, pray to the Lord. Can this really be called proper prayer?
In the Bible, Jeremiah 17:9, we see this saying: “The human heart is more crooked than anything else in the world. Because the heart of a person is evil, no one can understand what is inside (Easy Bible).” The human mind is egocentric. So the human heart is selfish. No one is an exception. Therefore, if you pray after deciding your own thoughts first, if it is a hundred to one hundred prayers, there is no choice but to be a self-centered prayer, a selfish prayer. About 10 years ago. By chance, while looking around the parish, I stopped seeing the prayer requests that a sister had left behind. The sister was praying for a mate. However, it was very specific. “Lord, the school must go beyond one school.” “You must be at least 172 cm tall.” Gentlemen, can you really say that praying with these conditions set up is the right prayer?
The Bible is clear on this point. “The reason you don't get what you want is because you don't ask God. And the reason why you do not receive even after asking is because your motive for asking is wrong. You are asking to use it only for your own benefit (Easy Bible, James 4:2-3).”
However, no. It must be the will of our Heavenly Father, not ours, that we must seek, we must seek, and that we must knock. This statement is also made clear in the words of Jesus that follow. “Who among you will give your son a stone when he asks for bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish? How much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” This should not be understood as saying that even if we ask for stones, they give us bread, and even if we ask for a snake, we give them fish. Of course, I am well aware that our prayers cannot always be right, so we cannot easily deviate from the self-centeredness of our prayers. That doesn't justify our asking for the wrong thing. It is the grace of God that turns us into good things even when we ask for wrong things. This is not an area in which we can do anything because God is sovereignly doing it.
What we need to do is work hard to learn and understand the will of God. In God's purpose and plan for me, I must first realize God's will for me. In this way, we must understand God's will and pray that He will fulfill it. As Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Abba, Father, all things are possible with you; remove this cup from me. But not as I will, but as you will.” He prayed like this. Many people say that Jesus prayed to understand the will of God at that time. I cannot agree with that. God's will was already clear to Jesus. It was God's will for Jesus to drink the cup that God gave him. Then, Jesus already knew God's will, so why did he pray? Jesus prayed to accept the will of God.
I believe so. It is not that difficult for us to understand God's will in certain circumstances. From the overall outline of the Bible, God's will for us is clear. Of course, in some situations it can be confusing. However, when you are so confused, you should pray over what really is God's will. However, in many cases God's will for us in the circumstances is clear. The problem is that it's hard to accept that meaning. We must pray to receive God's will, to apply God's will to our lives, and to do God's will.
Therefore, it is really wrong to set our thoughts and wills and pray for them to become our thoughts. Rather, as you read the Bible, study the Bible, and listen to the Word, discover first what God's will for you is in the Word. As George Muller (1805-1898) read Psalm 68:5, “God is the Father of orphans, and Judge of widows”, the moment I read these words, my whole body trembled. At that moment, he confessed to God like this. “God, I know your will for me. I will now devote my life to this work.” People say that he received answers to prayers more than 50,000 times in his lifetime. What kind of prayer was it? Did Mueller seek God's will each time? no. He prayed to God to find a way to feed the orphans in a difficult environment.
Even an evil father knows how to give good things to his children when they ask for them. How much more will the faithful God not respond when his spiritual children “ask, seek, and knock” in search of God’s will? Wouldn't the same God give really good things to those who seek and find their way and knock on the door to do God's will? Wouldn't a faithful God answer that prayer?
Listen to Hudson Taylor again. “The secret to my dedication and happiness is how I start my day. The performer tunes the instrument before the concert begins. Wouldn't it be foolish to tune in after a concert? When I wake up in the morning, I start by aligning my thoughts with God's will. Then life will be rewarding and happy." For him, his prayer life was nothing else. It was aligning my thoughts with God's will. Try it. If you have not yet discovered God's will for you, People come out at dawn to “seek,” “search,” and “knock” the will. Those who have already discovered God's will for their lives, come out at dawn and have a secret and blessed time to tune themselves to that will. Just as a well-tuned musical instrument makes a beautiful sound, How beautiful and blessed is our life?