Prayer

PRAYER
Text:  James 4:2b-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.
INTRODUCTION:  My dear friends in Christ, Today more than ever we see interesting parent-children relationships. We see such things as: the father and child as friends; we see the father and child as equals and all too often we see where the child controls the parents like puppets.  I have a friend who keeps telling me that a child considers an answer of "NO" as a blown answer on the parents’ part and he should try again. Needless to say his children ask and ask until the answer is what they desire.  Usually this turns out to be an avenue for the child’s selfishness to show up.  And when a child gets to the teen years the parents and children often don't talk at all.  There is a total lack of communication. But communication is impossible where selfishness confronts selfishness.  I’m sure that psychology has names for all these kinds of parent-child relationships.  As I thought about this I was struck by the many parallels between the parent-child relationship and prayer.  Like it or not we are the children and God is the Father.
I.  We can tell a lot about our relationship with God by how we think of prayer.
	A.  Often we may try to make prayer a communication between friends.
		1.  I am sure that's the origin of the hymn that we sing tonight "What a friend we have in Jesus'' —that’s the title but there’s much more to the hymn.
				a. Jesus is more than a friend. We cannot reduce Jesus to a friend only, that is not the intention of the hymn. b. But sometimes that’s just what we think that prayer is, just a friend to friend communication.
		2.  Jesus is a friend, but He is also our God.  There needs to be familiarity but also reverence, when we talk to Him.
				a. He is our all-powerful God and our Savior. b. Luther had a very good approach. It was said that, when Luther prayed, it was with as much reverence as if he were praying to an infinite God and with as much familiarity as if he were speaking to his nearest friend.  Luther developed a balance. c. Just as it doesn't work to have a parent as a friend only, it will not work to see God as a friend only.  More often than we care to admit we need more than a friend. d. But it also doesn't work to see Him as only the Almighty God either, -- then He is unapproachable.  We need to be able to approach Him, but we need to have the respect that is His due.
	B.  Seeing God as a friend only is also a problem because it can imply that this is a communication between equals.
		1.  When we treat God as if He were our equal we make Him a small God.
				a. Then we can have no confidence in His abilities or His love-. b. If He had powers equal to ours how much help could He really be?
			2.  If God is an equal we don’t necessarily need Him, or we only need Him in an extreme crisis.
				a. Then we say these prayers we hear on TV or the movies all the time: Lord You and me haven't talked in a long time but… Think about that, if you had a friend that you haven't talked for a long time how good a friend could he really be? b. We’re not equals – we’re helpless before God. We are helpless before events, before Satan.  And most of the time we have things too good to realize how helpless we really are.  We’re helpless and we need Him.
	C.  How not to view prayer: And sometimes our view of prayer shows that we want to control God – We want to make Him bow to our wishes.  Then we are placing ourselves above God.  We do this in many ways:
		1. First, we use prayer as a means to satisfy selfishness…
				a. …as in this story: A pious but cranky old lady was greatly annoyed because her neighbors forgot to ask her to go on their picnic. On the morning of the event they suddenly realized their offense and sent a little boy to ask her to come along.  It's too late now, she snapped.  I’ve already prayed for rain." - This lady was using prayer to control God to get revenge- It’s an attempt to use prayer to promote her sinful desires.  How do you think God would take this prayer? -As James says: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives,” b. Sometimes we even get mad at God when prayers are answered "NO”- because we don’t get our wishes. We weren’t able to control the answer. Then we rail at Him.  We turn from Him.  All because we don’t get what we want.  We are then acting like petulant children—throwing a tantrum.
		2. Sometimes we use prayer as a means to control how God gives out His love.  Normally he gives out His love freely through His means of grace, the Word, baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  And prayer is not a means of grace:  This is one of the greatest misunderstandings in the church of today,
				a. Many people want prayer to be the way to receive forgiveness. As if we control forgiveness by praying. b. This is as if we were able to work our way to heaven. If we must pray to receive forgiveness from God we will never have it, because we are never worthy- to pray. This is opposite of what the Bible teaches. c. We pray because we have been given forgiveness.  Prayer is a response to what we have been given by God.
II.   There are many other ways we try to make prayer other than what God intended. But let’s turn now to what God intended prayer to be.
	A.  To understand this we need to understand:  Who are God's true children?
			1. The answer is: We are through Jesus.  We are given God’s gifts through Jesus.
				a. Jesus lived a perfect life for us.  We cannot do this or even come close.  He never sinned. b. He was the perfect sacrifice for our sin.  He died on the cross.  He suffered what we should have suffered.  He bled and died for us. His innocent blood was shed for us.  Then miraculously. He rose from the dead. For us He conquered death. c. He did this; for us – for all men.  The benefits of what Jesus did are available to all—even us.
			2. And these gifts become ours in our baptisms.  We are adopted. We are made His children.
				a. We are, forgiven of our sin and given faith. b. Then we are brought into a relationship with God.
	B.  Now prayer for us is communication between God and His children - children born of God, Children who have been given faith.  Prayer is a response of faith, not a method to get faith.
			1.  Prayer is communication with God, made possible by Jesus and based on His deeds.
				a. It is not based on our standing before God but based on Jesus’ standing before God b. We know God hears our prayers because of Jesus  c. But His hearing does not mean we can ask for things against God's will.  God moves us to ask for things in accord with what Jesus would want, things only true children would ask.
			2.  From this we can see that Prayer must be according to His will. He is Father in all the good ways.  His will goes.  But His will is loving toward us because of Jesus. The relationship is Father to child, in all the best ways.
				a. He always answers His Children. His answers may not be what we want to hear though: as in this story: One day a Lady was giving her little nephew a lesson.  He was generally a good, attentive child, but on this occasion he could not fix his mind on his work.  Suddenly, he said,  'Auntie, may I kneel down and ask God to help me to find my marble?' His aunt gave her consent.  The little boy knelt by his chair, closed his eyes and prayed silently. Then he rose and went on with his lesson contentedly.  Next day, almost afraid of asking the question, lest the child had not found his toy, and so might lose his simple faith, she said, "Well, dear, have you found your marble"  “No.  Auntie," was the reply, "but God has made me not want to.”  God does not always answer our prayers in the way we wish or expect, but if we are sincere. He will take from us the desire for that which is contrary to His will. b. He Knows what is best and can see beyond what our small minds can see,
			3. And He always is giving whether we realize it or not.
				a. He gives what is best materially. The best way for me to understand this is to think of one of my kids asking for a knife off the kitchen counter. They thought it would be for their best to have that knife. They would cry when I gave the only answer I could give "NO."   I’m still going to refuse, no matter how much they plead, I know it would not be good for them, b. But to those things which are good for us.  He answers “Yes.”  And that happens more and more often when we know where to look to see those answers. It’s all because He loves us.
CONCLUSION: Today's models of the child-father relationship give us insight into our relationship with God concerning prayer. A father and child were not meant to be equals, the same is with us and God.  The child was never meant to control the father, as we were never meant to control God through prayer. God intended prayer to be the response of faith, based on the deeds of Jesus.  The more our will is in line with His, the more we will understand and see His answers. He is always giving, always loving His children.  Prayer is the communication of a true child with the Father.  Amen