In the time of fear, in the time of emotional distress, the formula is simple. Just go to the Lord in persistent, continual, unceasing prayer and the peace of God promised will guard your heart and mind.
Why do people go to other sources than that? Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. We've all had those moments where you close your eyes and start to pray, but then you get distracted by a family issue, or that meeting tomorrow, or a project that's looming, many things. And it can sometimes be a battle to pray for more than just a few minutes. So how do you build a consistent habit of prayer, a life of prayer that will strengthen your church? Find out today as John MacArthur continues his study, The Bible Driven Church. John, we've been thanking people for their financial support for the ministry, and we can't say that often enough, but we also want to say thank you to the people who run this radio station.
I know these are friends who are dear to you. Tell our listeners why that is. Well, there would be no radio at all if it weren't for the stations, and they have no real relationship to Grace To You.
They only take us if they want us. We don't have any authority over them, and so they are truly, in every case, a willing partner to this ministry. We get wonderful notes with regard to how important the radio stations are, and one of them I'll just share with you from a radio listener in Colorado. It says, Your ministry is a tremendous blessing in helping me stay grounded in the Word. I listen to Grace To You on KRKS 990 AM in Denver. The broadcast is my companion on the way to work at 530 AM every morning.
I appreciate your clear expository teaching that is so needed today. That's just one letter from one person listening to one station, and we have thousands of radio stations, and they all are the same very strategic partners. And you might even think that with the internet, traditional radio stations are not as important, but that is not true. They are vital and strategic, because they're out there all the time just broadcasting in a very general sense, and people just going down the dial in their car or in their home can come across Grace To You radio and be introduced almost serendipitously by accident, but we know it's not an accident.
The Lord has all that in plans. So we're grateful for radio stations. They are, in many ways, the introductory point to Grace To You that drives people back into the ministry for many resources that lie behind the radio program. So mentioning Grace To You by name to your radio station staff and management is really helpful. Let them know what this radio program means to you.
Believe me, positive listener feedback is crucial in keeping us on this radio station. And pray for the folks at the station and for Grace To You as we continue to partner for the glory of the Lord and the benefit of His people. Yes, friend, do pray for our station partners, and pray for the people here at Grace To You as well.
We can't thank you enough for your prayers. And with prayer still in mind, here's John MacArthur to look at the blessing that prayer brings to you and to others. I want to help you to get a grip on some motives for prayer.
I want to give you ten of them, just a little grocery list here. Ten motives for prayer that I believe produce an unceasing prayer life. Number one is a desire for the Lord's glory, a desire for the Lord's glory. Prayer, Jesus said, should start this way. Our Father who art in heaven, what? Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done. Now what you're praying when you pray there is that God would be glorified, that God's purposes would be accomplished, that God's name would be exalted, that God's will would be done. That's what you're praying. You're not praying for yourself, you're praying for Him. Yes, the first motive for prayer is a desire for the Lord's glory. When your heart longs that God be glorified, you're going to find yourself praying to that end. You're going to find yourself in an unceasing cry to God, be exalted, be glorified, be lifted up, accomplish your purpose, build your kingdom, do your will.
Secondly, a second motive to prayer is a desire for fellowship with God, a desire for fellowship with God. The psalmist so beautifully gave words to this truth in Psalm 42 verse 1, as the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night. Now there is a longing for God. There is a heart crying out for fellowship, the feeling of being estranged from God, the feeling of being cut off, the feeling of loneliness that reaches out and says, God, I want your fellowship, I want your company, I want your presence. Psalm 63, more magnificent words, O God, Thou art my God, I shall seek Thee earnestly. My soul thirsts for Thee, my flesh yearns for Thee in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Thus I have beheld Thee in the sanctuary to see Thy power and Thy glory.
I just want to see You, I just want to be with You, I just want to experience Your wonder. In Psalm 84, the first two verses there, again, how lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts. My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. How blessed are those who dwell in Thy house, the longing to be in the presence of God. And maybe most magnificently of all, Psalm 27, just listen to these wonderful words. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life, whom shall I dread? One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple. I just want to be where He is.
Do you have that? Do you have that longing for fellowship, sweet communion? There's a third prompter to prayer, to incessant, unceasing prayer, and that's a desire for needs to be met, a desire for needs to be met, not only ours but those around us.
Give us this day our daily bread, Jesus taught us to say in Matthew 6, 11. It is right to pray that our needs would be met. It is right to ask God for the basic things of life.
That's a prompter to prayer. Few of us, however, are prompted in that way because we have so much, so much. But there are across this world many folks who pray to God regularly just for their daily needs to be met.
We don't understand that in this affluent culture, but it is the way of life for many of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Fourth motive for persistent prayer is a desire for wisdom. James put it this way, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men liberally and holds back nothing.
If you are under the illusion that you don't need the wisdom of God, you are really deceived, are you not? When Jesus taught us to pray, He said this, pray like this, do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil. I really do believe that that is a prayer for spiritual discernment. That is a prayer for spiritual wisdom. Lord, please by your Spirit give me the ability to discern when I am facing a temptation. Give me the wisdom to discern when I am being led into something which is evil. We need to be incessantly praying that. We need to be praying all the days of our lives, Lord, please deliver me from temptation and do not lead me in an evil way.
Give me the wisdom and the discernment and the insight and the scriptural sensitivity and the leading of the Spirit of God so as not to allow me to fall into Satan's traps and the traps of the flesh and the world. What prompts prayer? Incessant prayer, a desire for the glory of God, a desire for fellowship with Him, a desire for needs to be met and a desire for wisdom in walking through the minefield that is this world. Number five, prayer is prompted by a desire for deliverance from trouble, a desire for deliverance from trouble. There are so many texts in the Psalms that speak of this. Let me sum them up in one that says it all, Psalm 20 verse 1, may the Lord answer you in the day of trouble.
And surely He will, surely He will. When we come to those times of great distress, they tend to prompt our unceasing prayer, don't they? And the greater the trouble and the greater the distress that we have found ourselves in, very often it's because we failed to ask for wisdom and so we fell in the trap in our ignorance and now we need to be delivered from it and there is no human way out. We cry out to God for deliverance. It's reminiscent of Jonah who, by the way, had a very specific prayer life. He found himself in the belly of a great fish and it says in Jonah 2, 1, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish.
And I'll tell you what, he didn't pray for all the missionaries first. He said, get me out, in so many words. And the Lord did it. The Lord delivered him. He said, I called out of my distress to the Lord, to the Lord. Thou hast brought me up from the pit, O Lord my God.
He said, I was down there and I remembered the Lord and I cried out and He delivered me. We come to God in those times of tremendous trouble, pressure, stress, pain, affliction and we need His deliverance. That prompts our unceasing prayer. Six, a desire for relief from fear and worry, a desire for relief from fear and worry. That will make us pray if we are wise and spiritually minded.
In Philippians chapter 4, we need so often to be reminded of this. It says, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. When you are in fear and anxiety and worry, you are in distress, you are in depression, what should you do? Very simply, stop being anxious and go to prayer. And pray with a thankful heart and the peace of God which surpasses all human comprehension will protect your heart and mind.
What does that mean? Guard it from anxiety, guard it from depression, distress, fear, worry. If you want a comprehensible, humanly comprehensible solution, go to a person.
If you want a humanly incomprehensible solution, go to God. In the time of fear, in the time of worry, in the time of anxiety, in the time of emotional distress and pain, the formula is simple. Just go to the Lord in persistent, continual, unceasing prayer with thanksgiving and the peace of God promised will guard your heart and mind.
Why do people go to other sources than that? When you want that relief from fear and worry, our God has promised it is yours through prayer. The psalmist wrote in Psalm 4, answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness. Thou hast relieved me in my distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.
You did it in the past, would you please relieve me again? Number seven, another motive to prayer is a desire to offer thanks for past blessing, a desire to offer thanks for past blessing. If you have a thankful heart, if you're a thankful person, and if you remember all that God has done in all His goodness, it'll make you pray if for no other reason than just to say thanks. In Psalm 44, the psalmist says, O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us, the work that Thou didst in their days in the days of old. Thou with Thine own hand didst drive out the nations, then Thou didst plant them, then Thou didst afflict the peoples, then Thou didst spread them abroad.
For by their own sword they did not possess the land, and their own arm did not save them. But Thy right hand and Thine arm and the light of Thy presence, for Thou didst favor them. Thou art my King, O God. That's just praise. And that's not praise for anything God had done for him. That's praise for what God had done for others in the past. Learning to be thankful to God for all that He has done throughout redemptive history, having a grateful heart on behalf of all the good things God has done, not just for you. The Apostle Paul writes to Philippians and he says, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. My prayer is always offered with joy in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. I just can't help but pray all the time thanking God for what He's doing in your life and what He has done and is doing. If you really are grateful to God for all that He has done, it's going to prompt you to pray a prayer of thanksgiving. Number eight, here is a very important motive to prayer and that is a desire to be freed from the guilt of sin, a desire to be freed from the guilt of sin. That classic penitential Psalm, Psalm 32, speaks to this and I'm only giving you select Scriptures out of many that could be used in these points, but listen to Psalm 32 and hear this.
Starting in verse 3, just to give you the flow, when I kept silent about my sin, David says, my body wasted away. I had psychosomatic illness as a result of guilt. I was groaning all day long. Day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality, my life juices were drained away as with the fever heat of summer. I was a mess. I was a mess. The life juices had to do with the blood flow system, saliva system, the nervous system which is conducted by fluid. All my life juices were dried up.
Saliva was dried up. The flow of blood wasn't right, therefore I had physiological problems. My nervous system was haywire. I was a wreck.
I had a fever. I was moaning. Verse 5 he says, then I acknowledged my sin to thee, my iniquity I didn't hide. I said I will confess my transgression to the Lord and thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. I confessed and you forgave. Then back to the beginning of the Psalm, he says this, how blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord doesn't impute iniquity and in whose spirit there's no deceit. The deceit is over. You're not covering the sin.
You've opened it up. You confessed it and now you're forgiven and now you're blessed. Yes, prayer, incessant, unceasing, penitential confession is prompted by a desire to be freed from the guilt of sin. Number nine, another motive to prayer is a desire for the salvation of the lost, a desire for the salvation of the lost. You will be moved to persistent prayer when you are compassionately concerned about lost people. They're all around us.
They're all around us. And if you care about their salvation, there'll be an almost unceasing commitment to pray as they cross your path and your mind. Listen to Romans 10, 1. Brethren, says Paul, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. Paul says, I'm praying for their salvation. I cannot see unsaved people and not pray for their salvation.
Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 2 is told by Paul that God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And then he says, now I want men to lift up holy hands, praying always. And what are they praying for? The salvation of the lost people for whom God has provided a salvation. Desire for the salvation of the lost prompts prayer. If you don't pray unceasingly, then something is wrong with your compassion for the lost. Number ten, incessant, ceaseless prayer is prompted by a desire for the spiritual growth of believers, a desire for the spiritual growth of believers.
In Ephesians, for example, chapter 1 verse 15, Paul says, for this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers. And what are you praying for, Paul? That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so you may know what is the hope of His calling and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. I am praying for you. Well, what are you praying for?
Your wisdom, your knowledge, your enlightenment, your hope. I'm praying for the power of God to be released in your life. I'm praying for your spiritual growth.
Chapter 3 verse 14, he says, I bow my knees before the Father and I'm praying for you. What are you praying? Verse 16, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power through the Spirit and the inner man. I'm praying for spiritual power. Verse 17, I'm praying that Christ may settle down in your hearts and that you would be rooted and grounded in love and that you would understand that love that surpasses knowledge, verse 19, and that you would be filled with the fullness of God. And verse 20, that you would do exceeding abundantly above all you can ask or think. I'm praying for your spiritual growth. We have a lot to pray for, don't we? What moves you to pray? When you desire the Lord's glory, when you desire fellowship with Him, when you desire needs be met by the One who alone has the resources, when you desire wisdom and discernment, when you desire deliverance from the troubles of life, when you desire relief from fear and anxiety and worry, when you desire to offer thanks for all His past and present blessings, when you desire to be freed from guilt and sin, when you desire the salvation of others, and when you desire the development and growth of the believers. There should be in your life enough reminders of these things to keep you praying all the time, right? So do a little spiritual inventory. If you're not praying without ceasing, it's because something is wrong at the desire level. Something is wrong in the underlying motivational level.
How do you prompt that? From my own life years of experience, I can only tell you that my prayer life is prompted by the Word of God. It is my time in the discipline of the Word of God and the study of the Word of God that prompts my prayer life.
Oh, there are other times when the Spirit of God moves upon me as I'm living in obedience to the Lord that I'm prompted to pray, of course. But if I want to develop a real longing for God to be glorified, then I find that that longing is developed out of the study of His Word. As I see His Word unfold in His marvelous plan, I'm like Daniel. Once I read what God has planned for His own future glory, then the longing begins to rise in my heart that He be glorified. It is like John who at the end of the book of Revelation has just told all the glories that are going to come to Christ and he can't help but cry out, Oh Lord, come quickly.
And it's not for my sake, it's for Yours. So as I gaze at the glorious plan of God outlined in the Word of God, I become consumed with His kingdom and His glory that prompts me to pray to that end. As I study the Word of God and in it I fellowship with God as He reveals Himself in the Word. As I learn more about His person and His character and the majesty of who He is, I have a greater desire to fellowship with Him. As I study my Bible and find all His promises and all the things He longs to do for His children and how He will meet all of our needs and how He will provide everything, I am therefore prompted to pray to that end.
As I read the Scripture and study it and find His majesty revealed in His wisdom, His amazing discernment, His perfect understanding of everything, it causes me to long for that same wisdom to be my wisdom so that I can work my way through this difficult world. As I read the Scripture and see the chronicle of the times He has delivered His people over and over and over and the promises that He has given that He will always do the same for His people, it prompts me to pray for deliverance from the troubles of my own life and the lives of those around me. And when I look at the Scripture and find how many of His special beloved servants were delivered from fear and worry and anxiety, how many of them sang hymns in jail and how many of them could stand on the edge of a fiery furnace and praise the God who had allowed them to come there because they so completely trusted Him, it allows me to be relieved from my own fear and my own worry.
As I realize that I can cast all my care on Him knowing He perfectly cares for me, I am delivered from anxiety. As I study my Bible also and find the record of all His past blessings and His past deeds and the glories of all of redemptive history and all that He has done to bring redemptive history to where it is now that I might experience the glories of the gospel of Christ and the blessings of His indwelling Spirit and the treasure of His Word, it causes me to offer thanks for His blessings. And as I look at the Scripture and I see the perfect forgiveness provided in Jesus Christ, the majesty of the plan of atonement and how it is worked out by grace through faith in my own life and how that I have access to complete forgiveness and cleansing every moment of my life, it leads me to confess my sins. And as I see the tears of God in Jeremiah 13 and the tears of Jesus in Matthew's gospel chapter 23, tears that are shed for those that refuse salvation and refuse the goodness of God, it makes me desire the salvation of the lost even as God does. And as I see the longing revealed in Scripture of God's heart for His people to grow spiritually, the continual call from the beginning of the Scripture to the end to His people to live in obedience and holiness, it reminds me to pray for the spiritual growth of believers. So if I want to have a persistent, consistent prayer life, I'm going to have to have certain desires in my heart that generate that, that motivate that. Those desires become in my life the fruit of my faithful, intense study of God's Word which reveals these things to me in fresh new ways every time I study it and therefore prompts my own prayer life.
Why do I ever come out of a study time in the Word of God without a new kind of commitment to pray in one dimension or another more faithfully than I have? Pray without ceasing, Paul said, and saying it, he said much. It is to be our way of life. Let's bow together in prayer. We thank You, Father, for the promise of 1 John 3.22, that whatever we ask we receive from You because we keep Your commandments and do the things that are pleasing in Your sight. So we know our prayers are effective and powerful and that if we pray out of the context of keeping Your commandments and doing what is pleasing, You're going to hear and You're going to answer our prayers. And as You do that, we're going to be blessed and then You're going to receive all the glory.
We know that's the plan. To that end, we pray, for Jesus' sake. Amen. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary in Southern California. And his current study on Grace to You is titled, The Bible-Driven Church. And now, friend, if I could ask a favor, if Grace to You has helped you love your local church more, or get through a trial, or better understand God's Word, would you let us know? Your letters encourage John and the whole staff. So when you have time, jot a note and send it our way. You can email us at letters at gty.org.
That's letters at gty.org. Or drop a note in the mail to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. And remember to take advantage of all the free resources at our website, gty.org. Do you have a question about how to honor God or what the issue of sovereign election is all about, or how to deal with some of the trials you face, or how to minister to a loved one who is suffering? For those issues and countless others, you will find biblical answers in the Grace to You Sermon Archive. That's 3,500 full-length sermons available for free.
You can download them right now. You'll also find insightful blog articles and daily devotions. You can purchase the MacArthur Study Bible and any of John's topical books. You can make a one-time gift or set up recurring donations to Grace to You, and much more. All of that on our website, the web address again, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, reminding you to watch Grace to You television this Sunday, check your local listings for Channel and Times, and then be here next week for another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
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