You get a group of Christians together and you get them candid. And get them to open up, they'll confess pretty often that their prayer lives are not what they should be. But the biggest problem I think that we face with this is the problem of really not knowing how to pray effectively. As human beings, we sometimes have a difficult time making conversation. We trip over our words, we say the wrong thing, or we don't say the right thing.
If we have that many problems speaking to our fellow man, how can we possibly hope to speak to God?
Well, that's what we're going to find out. Hello and welcome to the Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Thanks for being here. This week we're exploring Dr. R.
C. Sproul's series Five Things Every Christian Needs to Grow. Yesterday we explored how to study the Bible and today we'll be looking at how to pray because as Christians we need to pray. We'll be taking a look at five messages from this series this week, but there are another five that we won't have time to get into.
So if you'd like to explore this series in full, you can give a gift at renewingyourmind.org to receive lifetime downloadable access to the complete teaching series. You'll also receive the e-book, Five Things Every Christian Needs to Grow. Along with a copy of one of our crucial questions booklets, How Should I Live in This World? You'll have an opportunity to hear this offer again at the end of the episode. But until then, here's Dr.
Sproll. Let's turn our attention now to Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. Chapter 11 The first two verses that we read there. where Paul says, Oh, that you would bear with me. in a little folly.
and indeed you do bear with me, for I am jealous for you. with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you As a chaste virgin, Christ.
Now Paul saying of his spiritual children, I am jealous for you, Because You are the betrothed. You are engaged to be married, and I have seen that you have been betrothed to your husband who is Christ. And this, of course, follows the metaphor of the church as being the bride of Christ. When we look at this image, we see several aspects of the relationship between the bride and the groom. that adorns our relationship to Jesus.
The first aspect is Is that marriage is seen involving A gift. a gift that people make of themselves to another person. Remember that when Paul talks about how husbands are to relate to their wives, he says that the husbands are to give themselves. to their wives, just as Christ gave himself, to the church. And so this union between the Christian and the Christian And Christ is based on the first instance on Christ's gift of Himself.
to the believer. And the second aspect of this metaphor of marriage is saying In the idea of marriage as producing the most intimate kind. of union that any two human beings can have. In the New Testament Greek there are two words. that can be translated by the word in.
There's the Greek word n. Would we would transliterate it by the letters E N N or the word ice, which is translated In two. And we might think that it's a small thing to distinguish between these two words for in, but they're very, very important. If you are outside of a room, and you want to enter that room, you have to go through some threshold. You go through the door, and when you walk across that threshold, you are moving from outside the room into the room.
And after the transition has been made, Once you've walked through the door, Entering into the room, now you are obviously in the room. But to get in the room, you first have to move into the room from outside of it. And that's a simple distinction, but it's important because when the New Testament tells us to believe, in Christ. calls us to faith in Christ. The word that is used there.
is the word ice.
So that literally what the New Testament call is, is believe into Christ. And then we are told that once we do believe into Christ and embrace Christ. Then We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Who is In reality, Christ in us. And the mystical union is that once we are.
Born of the Spirit and are given the gift of faith and move into Christ, then we are in Christ. And Christ is in us. this is the foundation for all of Christian unity. And we often overlook that. Because if I am in Christ, And you are in Christ.
Then, because of our both being in Christ and Christ in us, We are right now already spiritually united in Him. We may be at odds with each other as Christians. We may disagree with each other in our theology and all the rest. Nevertheless, we enjoy a transcendent unity by virtue of both of our spiritual unity with Christ. You know, one of the things I hear all the time in ecumenical discussions.
is that we are called to get organizational unity with other Christians because Jesus prayed in his high priestly prayer that they all may be one and so on, and we've got to help make Jesus' prayer come to pass. But in a very real sense, beloved, That prayer. has been answered. from the very beginning. Because right now I already have a transcendent spiritual unity with every Christian in this world.
Because I am in Christ, and they are in Christ, and Christ is in all of us.
So, the second dimension of this marriage is that Paul says of the mystery of human marriage is that when two people come together in the sacred estate of marriage, and that that marriage is consummated. Those two persons become in the sight of God. One flesh. One flesh. Now, that's so strange because when we see two people who have an individual identity and they get married, we still see two people with individual identities.
Nevertheless, something has happened.
Something real has happened. where those two have now become one, In the sight of God. And so, this union becomes the foundation for our relationship with Christ. and the basis for prayer. Because the next step in real authentic marriage Beyond the establishing of the Union is communion.
In fact, in the Latin we have the word unio. And then we have communio, which is a union with. When we talk about communion, we're talking about communication that takes place between two people. people. And so we talk about the communion of saints.
which is a communion they have with each other, which I've just been talking about. But most importantly, is that we have an opportunity to commune with Christ himself. which takes place. Through the means. of prayer.
One of the biggest complaints I hear from people who are having trouble. in their marriages is that they experience a breakdown in communication. And one of the complaints I hear more often from women than any other one is, my husband never talks to me. My husband never talks to me.
Well, in this case, if Christ could make a complaint, it would be my bride. Doesn't talk to me. Because my bride has missed this opportunity for prayer and communion that I have established with them by virtue of my redeeming love. And I don't think there's any area of the Christian life where people are more weighted down by guilt than it is with respect to their prayer lives. You get a group of Christians together and you get them candid.
and get them to open up, they'll confess pretty often that their prayer lives are not what they should be. But the biggest problem I think that we face with this is a problem of really not knowing how to pray effectively.
Now recently In the church that I pastor in Sanford, Florida, we had a guest come in for a whole day, actually, a Friday evening, an all-day Saturday. workshop on what's called kingdom focused prayer.
Well, what do we mean by kingdom focused prayer?
Well, the first principle that we learned in this seminar Was that instead of spending most of our time in prayer, telling the Lord what we would like for ourselves, coming to Him with a grocery list, Lord, please give me this and please take care of that, and so on. The focus of our prayer is on the work of Christ and the work of the kingdom.
So that we begin to pray earnestly and specifically for the effective impact of the gospel in the world in which we live. And we look back at the model of the Lord's Prayer, and you see that this is what Jesus did when He taught His disciples how to pray. Remember the first petition. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven'.
That when Jesus instructed his disciples on how to pray, he told them that the priority of your prayers should be for the mission that I have given you. For the breakthrough of the kingdom of God. Remember, he elsewhere said, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Everything else will be added unto you.
So that we pray with a focused priority that is the priority of Christ Himself, for the triumph of His kingdom, for the sanctity of the name of God, and so on. Yeah. as a practical guide. for this enterprise that we're engaged in. Archie Parrish published a little booklet where he interacts in this little booklet.
With a little booklet that was published originally in the sixteenth century by Martin Luther. And Luther's book was entitled A Simple Way to Pray. And this booklet was written. specifically to answer a question about how to pray. By Luther's personal barber.
Can you imagine that? This fellow, who is one of Luther's oldest friends, his name was Peter Beskendorf. But he was known throughout the town in which Luther lived and worked as the as Peter the Master Barber. And so they called him Master Peter. And so, just like the disciples, when they notice Jesus going away into a quiet place, removing himself from their midst, and be engaged in earnest prayer.
And they saw the connection. Between the power of Jesus in his ministry and his intense prayer and communion with the Father.
So Master Peter there in Germany saw a link between Luther's extraordinary impact on the world and his prayer life, where Luther would frequently, as a matter of discipline, spend four hours a day. in prayer. And so Luther's barber said to him, Dr. Luther, can you teach me how to pray? And so Luther gave to his barber some simple suggestions, which Archie then has packaged for us and we've passed on.
And I've begun to practice and change the way I pray by following this procedure, which I think is just a marvelous way to pray. And there's some basic, simple, practical suggestions that are involved in here. First of all, that you set aside time for prayer every day as a matter of discipline and try to do it at the same time every day. Otherwise, the crowding of your schedule will push it away and you delay it and you'll miss it. But the point is that you make time and you make sure that you have the opportunity to get a loan.
to get into a place of solitude, which is what Jesus did. It's what Luther did. Which is what all prayer warriors do. They go to a quiet place where they can concentrate their mind on what they're doing. And Luther, in teaching the barber how to pray, told him that you need to be in a quiet place so that you can concentrate on what you're doing.
He said, it's just like your task as a barber. He said, the last thing I want you to do is have your mind wandering when you've lathered up my face and you take out that blade and start shaving me. I don't want you to start wool gathering and end up slitting my throat. And he said, so you need to get into a quiet place. And he also suggests that our prayers be out loud.
They can be a soft whisper. But there's something about articulating Your communication to the Lord allowed. Jesus, when he was in the garden of Gethsemane, prayed, out loud. Even though he was by himself to the Father. It's not something that God requires.
This is just a practical tip, as it were, that Luther gives to his barber. But it's the next part that I have found the most helpful. What Luther did, and what he advised his barber to do, was to pray. Through Three things. The Lord's Prayer The Ten Commandments and the Apostles' Creed.
Now, these are three things that many of us have already memorized, some of us haven't. But we often use in the liturgy of the church on Sunday morning. Just about every Christian in the world has memorized the Lord's Prayer. Not too many have memorized the Ten Commandments, but many have memorized the Apostles' Creed. But what does Luther mean when he says to pray through these things?
Well, you begin your prayer. By going through the Lord's Prayer petition. BY PETITION and meditating on each petition and then expanding. in your prayer. With respect to each petition, for example, as I said, the first petition of the Lord's Prayer, you know, our Father who art in heaven.
Hallowed be thy name. Now on other occasions I've told people the classic simple acrostic that we use to follow for prayer, the little manomic device using the word axe, A-C-T-S, where you follow that acrostic. A stands for adoration, C for confession, T for thanksgiving, and S for supplication. Those are the four elements that should be involved in every prayer.
Well, I combine that acrostic with Luther's method. I get to the first petition of the Lord's Prayer. Hallowed be thy name. What are we asking for here? And I spend time focusing on that, praying to the Lord.
That Our culture. would come to an awakening. of the holiness of God.
So that instead of God's name being dragged through the mud, Or used in a flippant cavalier manner. Even among Christians, that the name of God would be considered sacred, that the name of God would be treated with reverence. and with a sense of adoration. I mean, how we could pray for an hour just about the ramifications of that first petition. And Luther would often do that.
He said to his barber, Sometimes I won't get through more than one or two petitions because my mind will be so engaged and I'll become so fervently concerned about this element of the prayer. And he said, that's okay. All we're looking for are pegs to hang our thoughts on, as it were, as we are engaged in focused prayer for the kingdom of God.
So, not only do I pray that God's name be hallowed and use that as a trigger for adoration, thinking about the holiness of God, His majesty, His greatness, His transcendent beauty, and so on. But I also can go on and confess That I have not done everything in my power to see to it that his name is hallowed, and then also thank God. That His name is holy because He is holy, and I am greatly benefited and blessed by the reality of the holiness of God, because it means that the One who is the Lord of heaven and earth is a righteous ruler. There's no corruption, there's no shadow of turning in him. And so my prayer of thanksgiving includes a joyous expression for the greatness of God's name.
I mean, why is His name to be holy? Because He is holy. And how we treat His name reflects how we feel about Him. And by reflecting on the sanctity of God's name, the flames of spiritual ardor. Are fanned in our souls just in this one petition.
And then, of course, you go to the next petition of the Lord's Prayer. Hallow be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. on earth.
So that I think about the mission of the church, I think about my responsibility as a Christian to bear witness to the Lordship of Christ, to His kingdom. And I think about the things that we're engaged in in our local church or in the ministry of Ligonier or in the outreach of other ministries. And we begin to pray specifically how the kingdom of God can be enriched and strengthened by ministry activities and programs that we're engaged in or that we know about.
So we pray with specific reference to missionaries, for example, that we're supporting. or other programs that we're engaged in. for outreach of the kingdom. And you go right on through the Lord's Prayer, asking for your daily bread, you know, and your physical needs, and asking for forgiveness of your sins, and for a forgiving spirit within yourself, all the way down to the amen. Where Luther says the amen is very important because we're told to pray with faith.
And the word amen is a derivative from the Hebrew word for truth. And what you say at the end, amen, is to say, this is true. I'm committed to this, and I believe what I've just said to you, God. And Luther said, you need to speak that amen at the end of your prayer and mean it as you are committing your prayers and your thoughts of those petitions to the Lord for his sovereign disposition of those requests. But that's only the first part, is the Lord's Prayer.
But you can see how that could easily take more than 15 minutes if you go through each of the petitions of the Lord's Prayer and focus your attention on them and expand it. Then the second thing is the Ten Commandments. And you know, you can learn the short version of the Ten Commandments. You don't have to learn the long version, where you can say, you know, thou shalt have no other gods before me, thou shalt not make any graven images, you know, and so on, right down through the list. And what Luther does is that he breaks those things into four parts.
He said, the first thing I do, he says, I think about what the law is teaching me. the instruction that is to be found in each of the commandments. What is it teaching me? And then I think in terms of how grateful I am. That we have a God.
Again, the thanksgiving dimension is there for this law and what these laws do. Honor thy father and the mother. Luther will then express his gratitude, not only for what his parents have done for him, but for what Prince Frederick, Elector of Saxony, who was his authority, did for him, what the government does for us.
However, we need to be grateful. You can subsume under that first heading. And so you have the instructional dimension of the law, thanksgiving, confession. Anytime I look at the law of God, I am provoked now in my soul to know where I have sinned and where my confession needs to be. And finally, you pray on that law in terms of kingdom focus again, where just like we prayed that the Lord's name would be hallowed, we'll pray that the world would be rid of idols, that the singular majesty of God will be so visible that there will be no other gods competing with him.
That focuses our prayer on the triumph of Christ. And so you go through all of the Ten Commandments of that. If you're thinking about what to pray for for an hour, you can see how Luther could pray for four hours, just with those two. And then when he's done with that, with the Ten Commandments, then he moves to the Apostles' Creed. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ only Son, our Lord, and so on.
Where each one of those things focuses your attention. for your prayer life. And so, what you have instead of a willy-nilly. Ad hoc. unorganized wool gathering process of praying.
You have a biblical Map. to follow. to focus your attention On your communication with the Lord.
Now, there are other ways to enhance this, and one of the things we do in my little fire group is that I have. The elders that I'm praying with memorize. certain psalms, like we all memorize the first psalm. The eighth song. We're in the process of memorizing Psalm 51, which is the classic penitential psalm of David.
in his confession of sin. Because it's a wonderful thing to be able in our prayer. to address God with his own words. by memorizing a few psalms selectively, You have that at your disposal. When you want to praise God in language and in words that you know are pleasing to Him, you take that body of words from that which He has revealed to us in sacred Scripture in spirit.
inspired prayers that are recorded for us In the book of Psalms. And so that, as well as the Lord's Prayer. The Ten Commandments and the Apostles' Creed. Are all great benefits for us in prayer.
So I think one of the most blessed men in human history was that barber in Wittenberg who was instructed on how to pray by Martin Luther. who was a master himself. in the discipline. The Bible tells us that now we have the opportunity to come into the presence of God. To approach his throne boldly.
And yet, we have to be careful that we notice the difference between boldness and arrogance. Even though we are to come boldly into the presence of God, we are to come. In a spirit of humility. And again, In this case, the disciple is not above his master, and though this is an unspeakable privilege that we have to come before God. It's very important that we enter into His presence that we remember two things that I've pointed out again and again.
The two most important things that we have to remember. When we speak to God, is that we have to remember Who he is. And we have to remember who we are. And as long as we remember those two things, we will be in a proper posture and attitude of reverence and adoration as we engage in conversation with him. In Christ, prayer is not just a duty.
It's a delight. What a blessed thing that is, to be able to commune with our Heavenly Father through prayer. There's another five episodes in this series that we won't get to this week, but you can receive lifetime downloadable access to the complete series in the Ligonier app when you donate to day. We'll also send you the ebook edition of Five Things Every Christian Needs to Grow, along with a copy of the Crucial Questions booklet, How Should I Live in This World. You can make your gift in support of this program at renewingyourmind.org and we'll send you all three of these resources.
So far, we've explored how to study the Bible and how to pray. But if you've been counting, that's only two things that we need to grow as Christians. We've still got three more to explore.
So join us tomorrow as Dr. Sproll looks at the topic of how to worship here. on Renewing Your Mind.
