The point of Paul saying pray without ceasing is not to burden us.
It's to liberate us from our burdens. It's to say whenever you're burdened, whenever you are even burdened and feel badly about not praying, bring it to the Lord. Pray without ceasing. Does prayer feel like a burden for you?
Are you weighed down as you recognize your prayerlessness, even as you desire to pray more? Well, stay with us today as Burke Parsons brings a message I personally found so helpful and encouraging on the topic of prayer. This is the Monday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. Back in May, Ligonier Ministries held their annual national conference in Orlando, Florida, and thousands of Christians of all ages gathered for three days of fellowship and teaching on the theme The Way, The Truth, and The Life.
This week you'll hear some of those sessions and we'll be featuring a new resource offer for you every day. Today when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, we'll send you John Calvin's practical and classic book, A Little Book on the Christian Life. Dr. Parsons co-translated this fresh edition. We'll also send you Dr. Sproul's title, Does Prayer Change Things? Two resources to help you in your Christian growth. Burke Parsons is our teacher today and he serves as the senior pastor at St. Andrew's Chapel in Sanford, Florida.
He's a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow and Ligonier's chief editorial officer. Well, here he is with his conference message on the theme of prayer. Having to speak on the subject of prayer is a little like speaking on the subject of humility. You shouldn't do it because everyone thinks… So you think you've got this.
You think you've figured it out. It's a dangerous thing to speak on humility because as soon as you do, you start sounding like you've figured it out and you sound arrogant. Prayer is very much like that because when it comes to the subject of prayer, we are talking about that which none of us ever completely figures it out. In fact, even the mention of the word prayer makes some of us feel guilty. Today I'll not be expositing a full passage, but rather we'll be looking at numerous New Testament passages and we'll have to make our way quickly from one passage to the other. So as soon as I mention that next verse and reference, you better get turning. I know some of you are using tablets and phones, but if you are using your Bibles and you're not familiar with how to turn quickly, well then just locate your nearest Baptist and watch him.
Just to be clear, that is a compliment to my Baptist brothers. And we're going to have to make our way very quickly through this, and also it's important to remind you, being that we're on the subject of prayer, that when it comes to these passages before us, there's a great deal that Scripture commands us and teaches us about prayer. Also, there'll be many things that I will say that are just my opinions and my counsel, and that is often the case when it comes to the subject of prayer because the Bible doesn't tell us everything about prayer, but it tells us sufficiently what we need to know. So when it comes to my opinions and my counsel, my habits, routines, or anything that I mention, always make sure to keep them in their proper place and extol, lift high, the infallible Word of God. Because when it comes to the subject of prayer, too often, too many of us feel guilty and feel like we are barely maturing in the whole matter of prayer in our lives. Because we have been inundated with the opinions, routines, counsels, habits, and disciplines of others, people that we may respect, people throughout church history. But dearly beloved, it is my contention that much of the reason many Christians struggle when it comes to the subject of prayer is because their minds and their perspectives on prayer is more made up of the opinions and the traditions of men as if they were the Word of God rather than the infallible and unchanging Word of God.
Let's dig in. Matthew chapter 6. In Luke chapter 11, the disciples ask Jesus, teach us to pray. In Matthew chapter 6, we read in verse 5, And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward, but when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Jesus has already taught them about hypocrisy beginning in verse 1, that we are not to do our good works or perform our good works before others in order to be seen by them. Now later in Matthew, He tells us to do our good works for the right reasons, with the right motives, even at the end of chapter 5, for the glory of God. But He warns us not to practice our righteousness before others in order to be seen by them. This sort of hypocrisy of those praying in public and using long-winded sentences in order to be seen and in order to be heard by others is simply hypocrisy. Now I realize that there are many people who look at the church and say that the church is full of hypocrites.
Sometimes we even joke about that and say, well, why don't you come and join us and you'll add to our number. But the reality of it is that Jesus in the whole of Scripture does not in any way refer to Christians as hypocrites. We are not hypocrites. We are repentant sinners who even when we act hypocritically at times repent of our hypocrisy. A hypocrite is someone who never intends to be who he pretends to be, and so often when it comes to the subject of prayer, Christians can be hypocritical, especially in how we communicate about prayer, saying that we've prayed for someone because we want to convey that we care for them and love them, and we want them to know that we are praying for them. Let's just make sure that we are praying for them as much as we are saying we are praying for them.
Let us be a people of action and truth, not simply of lip service. Jesus goes on and He says, And when you pray, verse 7, do not keep up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. And then He goes on and teaches them this short prayer. The empty phrases of the Gentiles, the word that's used there, speaks of long-winded, vain, and futile babblings.
Don't be like them. Too often too many of us worry about our prayers, especially if we're in a group of other Christians, because we want to sound intelligent. We want to sound smart. We don't want our prayers to sound stupid. And so often while others are praying, we're thinking about what we should be praying for rather than actually praying their requests and supplications along with them. Now I want us to do something, something that I've not done, but here at a conference we can do this. I want us to pause for a moment and actually pray the Lord's Prayer. Let's use the pronoun thy, and let's use the words debts and debtors, and let's not just recite it. Let's pray it.
Are you ready? Let's pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. What did you notice in that prayer?
Well, firstly we notice how short it is. In fact, in Hebrew, Greek, it takes about twenty-five to thirty seconds. It's simple. How many people in this room feel guilty about their prayer lives? Yet you could just pray the simple Lord's Prayer, and you would be freed of all guilt. This is the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples, and yes, it is a framework for all prayer. But it's also a prayer in and of itself. We notice in this prayer the simplicity of it. They're not complicated words or complicated thoughts or phrases. The words are simple.
Children can understand it. Everyone can understand it, yet the words and the phrases and the concepts and the theology have such depth. Another thing we notice in the Lord's Prayer is that there's no I, me, or mine. Now, we are included in the pronouns, the plural pronouns, we and our, but it's interesting because so much of our lives and our lives of prayer center on ourselves. But when we have God's kingdom and God's glory in mind, we think less and less about ourselves and more about those around us who have needs and desires and requests as well.
And when we do that, it begins to help take our eyes off ourselves and onto others so that we might esteem them as better than ourselves, that we might serve them as we bring their requests to the Lord. Now turn with me, if you would, to Matthew chapter 7, the very next chapter. Jesus says in verse 7, Check, and it will be given to you.
Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?
Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him? Do you believe this? To be honest, it is passages like these that I find difficult to truly and fully believe as I should. Passages where Jesus tells us that it is good for Him to go away. Passages similarly in John 17 and Jesus' long, beautiful prayer to the Father, telling us that the Father loves us as He loves the Son.
I find that very difficult to believe, yet I have to believe it by faith, and I do. But passages like this, we are prone to say, Jesus, I have come multiple times, I have come hundreds of times with the same requests, with the same desires, with the same prayers, and this promise and my prayers have not been answered. We tend not to believe passages like this because of the experience we've had with prayer, and that's because we don't fundamentally understand the nature and purpose of prayer. Too many of us think about prayer in terms of our prayer lives, where that language is never used in Scripture. In fact, the picture that we see in Scripture is one not of a prayer life, isolated to certain times of the day for certain lengths of time so that you can tell everyone when you do these prayer times, how long they are, and who you prayed for, but rather in all of Scripture what we see is a life of prayer, a praying life. And to be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong, and it is commendable to have isolated times of prayer in our lives, but let us not make laws and traditions where God's Word has not.
Let's especially not make those laws and traditions, rules, routines, and disciplines laws for others. Let us by our own examples and by our own routines and habits demonstrate a praying life, because as we understand what Jesus is saying here, He's telling us first and foremost to reflect and meditate on the character of our God, that our God is our Father, and He desires to give good gifts to us, and how much greater are the gifts He gives than the gifts that our own fathers gave. And so as a call to reflect on His goodness, His mercy, and His abounding grace, I think most of us, when it comes to the gifts of God and the goodness of God, we think that He's sort of holding us at arm's reach, that He's just dulling out little bits of grace here and there where we deserve it, and we think that God is sort of putting up with us.
If I asked for a show of hands this afternoon and it said, how many of you at times in your lives feel that God's just putting up with you? God doesn't put up with His children. God adores His children. God lavishes on His children, His grace and the abundance of His mercy. He is a God who is abounding, overflowing with steadfast love and faithfulness toward us, His children. It is in God's character.
It is who He is to give good gifts. So why is it that we so often presume what God won't do and then we never ask? Why is it that we pray for a time about something or someone, but we give up thinking that that person, that situation, this disease is hopeless? And we give up and we stop praying because at the end of the day, we don't believe to the degree that we should because in truth, believing and prayer are very closely associated and praying is easier than believing.
But the reason we stop praying so often is because in one sense, in one way or another, we've stopped actually believing. Why is it that we don't pray for extraordinary things to happen? When's the last time you prayed for a public leader, politician, dictator, tyrant, terrorist to repent and to come to faith in Jesus Christ? When's the last time you prayed for a celebrity, or when's the last time you ran through the world's most wealthy men and said, Lord, I pray that you would save this man's soul. I pray that this man would come to know and love you. And I pray that he'd give all his money to Ligonier Ministries. I've even prayed for some of the most wealthy and powerful men in the world that they would come to Christ, and I've even prayed that they would be reformed.
Now it sounds crazy, doesn't it? Because we honestly think that there are some people who are just so far out of reach of God's grace. That's why we don't ever pray for them. We presume what God won't do and then we never ask Him. We don't ask the great things of God because at the end of the day we don't believe it's possible. The hard part is, and the reason we often don't, is because we've prayed so often for the smaller things in our lives that don't get answered, that God doesn't do when we know He can. And we get disappointed and we get frustrated.
We can even sometimes in our sin grow angry and bitter, especially when it comes to our children, especially when it comes to parents, to loved ones. Never give up on anyone. Never stop praying. Never stop going to the Lord for anyone, even on those people and in those cases that seem to be lost causes, even those people who seem never to change, those people who seem never to be able to withstand their most minute sins, even when that person is you.
How many of you are prone to give up and praying to God for yourselves? How many of us feel, Lord, I know you don't want to hear from me again because I've sinned in the same way again. I hate that sin. I keep repenting of that sin.
I wish I could just change. We're not walking in sin. We're not practicing sin, as John writes in 1 John, rather. We sin and we repent of that sin.
We despise that sin, but we can't seem to shake ourselves from it. Don't give up. Don't ever give up even on yourself. Keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking because, dearly beloved, we were created for this life. God made this world for us to inhabit, and He made us for one purpose. He made us that we, as His image bears, would commune with Him, that we would have fellowship with Him. That's really what prayer is after all. In fact, I have found it a very helpful practice in my own life, learning this from some of the reformers and some of our faithful forefathers from the ages, to think of prayer not simply as prayer, but as communion with our Lord. And as many of you know, because you've been through trials and hardships that you can't even put into words to describe to those that you love and know the best, you come to know that your Father, your Savior, is indeed your closest and dearest companion, who is the only one in the end who understands. And that communion that you have with Him, that communion that develops over the years through trials, as you are conformed to the image of His Son, as you share in the fellowship of His sufferings, you become more conformed to Him, and that communion with Him grows. It is a communion that flows, and as you live and as you breathe, it's as if you walk and sing and breathe out exhaling breaths of supplication and requests, and inhaling praises and doxologies and thanksgivings and adoration. And prayer becomes as normal as breathing.
In fact, in some cases, it becomes even more normal than breathing, because you know that you couldn't really breathe without that constant companionship, especially for those of you who have lost your closest earthly companions and your loan. Turn with me to John 14. As you turn to John 14, do you notice about the prayers of the aged among us? I noticed something many years ago, listening to the prayers of the elderly, is that they sound strikingly familiar to the prayers of little children. The prayers are simple, not complicated. The words they use are not impressive words.
There's no erudition in their words. They're not trying to impress anyone, because what you see, both in little children and in the elderly who have been walking with the Lord for decades, is you see dependence and humility as if we were children. Jesus in John 14 and verse 12 teaches, Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. Now this is confusing to many Christians.
I have found that as this language and this theology is repeated elsewhere in the New Testament about asking anything in the name of Christ, that He will do it, He will perform it. There's confusion about that because we don't really understand what name means when Jesus says, if you ask anything in My name. Now for most of our history as human beings, even in this country of ours, our United States, we have understood at least traditionally, I'm not sure if many people understand this to the degree they should today, but when we spoke of someone's name, that meant something, because we understand as human beings that our names mean something, and whether our name is associated with that which is good, or if our name is associated with that which is bad. We'll sometimes speak of someone having a good name.
What do we mean by that? We mean that someone has a good name because his character has been manifested, demonstrated, exhibited for a long enough time for that man to earn a good name. Perhaps his name is the one of his fathers or his grandfathers or his great-grandfathers, and we knew those men in our communities as men of good character.
Their name meant something, and what those men desired and what those men did, the decisions they made were generally seen as wise and good decisions because that was what they did in accordance with their character, in accordance with who they were, in accordance with their name. When Jesus teaches this in John 14, He is not telling us first and foremost to add an appendage to our prayers glibly and somewhat vainly, just throwing it on as an attachment to the end of our prayers like a postscript in Jesus' name, or more properly, in Jesus' name. Now, the reason we do that, the reason we add in Jesus' name, it's not required in every prayer, it's not necessary in every prayer, but the reason we do that is to fulfill this teaching, that whatever we ask in His name, He will do. But adding in Jesus' name to the end of our prayers is, for some people, almost as if adding some sort of magical incantation to the end of their prayers. And you'll notice that some people, and I don't want to offend anybody, but some people will employ in Jesus' name throughout their prayers as if that brings more power to their prayers. It's as if they say in Jesus' name or in Jesus' name, it will add power to their prayers.
It is a fundamentally wrong understanding of what Jesus is teaching here. What He is teaching here and what we see throughout the New Testament is if we know Him, if we know our God, if we know His character, this is one of the reasons we study theology, this is one of the reasons we come to conferences, this is one of the reasons we have Bible studies and come under the ministry of the Word every Lord's Day. It's because we want to know God, because the more we know God, the more we know God as God has revealed Himself, and the more we glorify God, and the more, in knowing God, we are able to pray in accordance with His character. We are able to pray more in accordance with His character, His will, His desires, knowing the sorts of things that God does desire, that God does will, that God does care about. And so what happens as we study God? We not only become more knowledgeable of Him, we become more like Him. That's why we speak of people who are godly.
We know that their righteousness is not in and of themselves, but there is a sanctifying righteousness as they are knowing the Lord and as they are praying in accordance with God's character, God's will, and God's desires. And so what Jesus is saying here is that the more we know Him, the more we will pray according to His will, and so we pray. Again, it's not inappropriate to say in Jesus' name, but that's not fundamentally the point. The point is that our prayers are more in accord with God's character and the will of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now turn with me to Romans in chapter 8. In this survey of the New Testament, there are many passages that we are not considering, but we read elsewhere in Ephesians chapter 6 and 18 and Jude 20, the language of the New Testament is praying in the Spirit. And there are denominations and traditions out there that think that some Christians pray in the Spirit and other Christians don't pray in the Spirit and that you have to strive to pray in the Spirit, but the truth is that every Christian, every genuine believer has the Spirit within him.
Paul tells them this throughout his writings, 1 Corinthians 3, 16, you are the temple of God, you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you. Earlier in Romans chapter 5 and verse 5, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us, thus the Spirit is in us. The Spirit's not in some of us and not in others of us, the Spirit is in every genuine believer.
We've been regenerated, made alive by the Spirit of God, He's taken out our stubborn, hard hearts and given us new hearts that are soft, impliable, according to the will of God. And because we have the Spirit of God, we by necessity pray in the Spirit. And so Paul writes in Romans chapter 8 and verse 26, Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Praying in the Spirit as Christians, we can know that our feeble prayers, as weak as they might be, as hard as they are sometimes to utter.
And that really is the truth, isn't it? Because at certain times in our lives when we're going through certain trials, certain difficulties with certain burdens and anxieties, it is difficult to even utter a word. Now, if you haven't been there yet in your life, you may very well be at some point. And that's why it is helpful sometimes to have a journal, have something to write on, because sometimes you can't get the words out because it's too painful.
And you don't even quite know what to say, but you can write it down. Praying with your pen, going to the Lord who hears and who sees and who knows, because for those of us who have prayed for things for a long period of time, for months or years, for God to act, for God to intervene, for God to save, for God to rescue, for God to come to our help, for God to heal. Sometimes going to that same place of prayer and uttering those same words of prayer can be so difficult because you feel that when you pray, you're going to be let down again. God's not going to hear. God's not going to answer. But what we fundamentally need to understand, dearly beloved, is that while it's not inappropriate to speak of God answering prayers in doing what we've asked Him to do according to His will, the truth of the matter is that God always answers our prayers. The truth is we just don't always like the answers.
I think it was C.S. Lewis who said something like, if God had answered all the silly prayers in my life, where would I be now? Think about the prayers that you prayed when you were younger thinking that that's what you needed. I remember years ago going through a very severe trial, and as soon as the trial came upon me, I just started praying, Lord, I pray that you'd bring this to an end. I humble myself. I do whatever I need to do. I will do whatever I need to do, say whatever I need to say, but Lord, bring this to an end.
And it was about a year later. I was driving in the car, and I remember exactly where I was, and it dawned on me that this trial needed to continue so that I would learn from the trial and come under the trial in the way that God had intended. Because the point of our trials is not to figure them out.
The point of our trials is not to exploit them and make much of ourselves on social media. The point of our trials is to come under them and to learn whatever God would have us learn and to grow in humility and dependence, that God would teach us what it is to be broken and God would teach us what it is to be dependent, that God would teach us what it is to really cry out, that God would teach us to understand what it means that His grace is sufficient and that His power is made perfect in our weakness, not in our strength. The Spirit is groaning for us. He is sighing for us.
There is an empathetic tone to this language here. These sighs, heavenward, are taking our feeble prayers and translating them to the Father's ears. Your prayers are heard by the Lord just as much as my prayers, just as much as the most holy and godly man's prayers.
Indeed, as we'll consider in a moment, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man does indeed avail much, and there is a connection there that we do not want to forget. But what we do need to understand is that each and every one of us indwelt by the Spirit of God is anointed by God. Too often in the church, especially in churches like ours where we have robes and the liturgy is sort of a high liturgy, too often, especially for children and young people, they think that the pastor is anointed. And what we have to do as pastors who are here, we need to be very careful to regularly remind our people that we are not the anointed of God, that we, as the people of God, are the anointed of God.
That's the point that John makes abundantly clear in his first epistle. We are the anointed of God. Each and every one of our prayers is heard by God. Sometimes people think, well, if the pastor prays, God's really going to hear. But what we need to do is teach our children that their prayers are heard just as much as our prayers. That God doesn't listen less to their prayers. And God takes all of our prayers, however sloppy they might be, however foolish we might feel at times, especially those who are shy and those who don't feel like they're good prayers, don't worry about it.
And if you're with people who are making you feel that way, go find another group of people. Because we want to be in times of prayer where it's not stressful. It should be a time of freedom and great comfort. Now to 1 Thessalonians in chapter 5. I love this passage because we have three verses enumerated this way, which were enumerated back in the 11th, 12th centuries.
But it's interesting that they enumerated in this way in chapter 5 verses 16, 17, and 18, when in one sense they all belong together, yet they can stand alone. Paul writes, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Romans 12, 12 says, be constant in prayer. Colossians 4, 2 says, be praying continuously or steadfastly.
This is the overwhelming teaching of Scripture, but what Paul says here is different. He doesn't just say, be constant in prayer, be praying continuously or steadfastly. He says, rejoice always. We all hear that and we say, yeah, right. Now there are some people here to be truthful, and I know some people.
There are people I've known for years, people in our church who every time I see them, whenever I come upon them, doesn't matter what they're going through, they are rejoicing. Now when you're a young Christian, you don't understand that. When you're young and cynical, you think that's not possible. They must be just acting. They must just be hypocrites.
No. You don't know what's going on in their heart. You don't know how they feel inside, but what they are doing is responding to the command of God to no matter how they feel, ignore their feelings, put their feelings away, and preach the truth to their feelings to say, in all circumstances, give thanks. And they are rejoicing not necessarily because they feel like it, but because they know it is right. It's fascinating to me how Paul says, rejoice always.
We say, sure, Paul. Well, how is it that we rejoice always? It's by praying incessantly. The language here of praying without ceasing, it's wrongly translated pray on every occasion or pray on every circumstance. The language here is praying incessantly, literally, that there would be no unnecessary gaps in time in our prayers. Again, if we understand this more as communion with Lord, that's what prayer means.
The Greek word made up of two Greek words has to do with our going towards God and exchanging with God this communion of hearing from Him and His truth and His word about His character and what He desires and going towards God in this exchange of letting Him know of our desires, of our wishes, of our hopes, of our needs. What Paul is saying is that this life of prayer is a prayer without ceasing. Now, I realize that when some people hear this, they say, you know, it sounds like a big burden to pray without ceasing. In fact, this is maybe one of the reasons in one of the verses why so many Christians say, this is why I feel so guilty about prayer, because I don't pray without ceasing. Dearly beloved, the point of Paul saying pray without ceasing is not to burden us. It's to liberate us from our burdens. It's to say whenever you're burdened, whenever you are even burdened and feel badly about not praying, bring it to the Lord, pray without ceasing. And what happens is, is that as we were speaking of earlier, inhaling and exhaling requests and thanksgivings and praises, what happens is you begin to pray throughout the day when you awake, when you go to sleep, wherever you are with prayers of all sorts, short and small, often very common prayers that you pray throughout the day and every day and you don't mean to.
You just can't help it because your closest companion is there and listening and you know that he's the only one who understands and he made you for this very purpose. Luther gets at this in one of his books where he talks about the nature of our lives and the end for which God created us to have this communion with us. Too often regarding our circumstances, our eyes are fixed on our circumstances rather than on the cross. Too often in the midst of our trials, our eyes are fixed on the trials rather than on the author and perfecter of our faith. Too often when we're dealing with our sin or the sins of those we love, we're fixed on the sin that so easily entangles itself around our ankles rather than lifting our eyes up and focusing them straight ahead upon our ascended Savior. When it comes to prayer, dearly beloved, we are to see it as that which frees us, not that which burdens us.
Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 14, the author of Hebrews writes, Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
In Ephesians 3 12 we read Paul saying that we have boldness and access with confidence, all because of Christ, all because of His righteousness, all because we're united to Him. We do not need to be timid in our prayers, but how often do too many of us feel timid, especially in going to confess the same sin over and over and over again? It's the devil who is telling you you don't deserve to ask forgiveness again. It is your enemy, your accuser, who is saying you don't deserve it. Wallow in your shame, wallow in your guilt, just wallow in the mire, feel badly about it for as long as you possibly can, and only then maybe do you deserve to come back before the throne of grace. It's Satan, our accuser, who says you don't deserve it, but it's Jesus in talking about forgiveness with His disciples who says 70 times 7. God always wants to hear from us. Don't punish yourself and wallow in the mire thinking that this self-deprecation is godly.
It is not. Run to your Father. He desires and loves to hear from His children. We can go boldly before the throne because it is Satan who calls us by our sin and wants us to identify ourselves by our sin, but it's God who calls us by our names, and His name is stamped on us. Turning to 1 Peter in chapter 5. In 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 6, Peter writes, "'Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you.'" The language here, and as it's rightly translated here, is very important because the word casting is a participle. It's dependent upon the main verb which is in the previous verse.
It is unhelpful and an improper translation to translate this as cast your care as if this is a wholly new verb and sentence. No, it is related to and connected to what we read in verse 6, "'Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time He might exalt you in His perfect and sovereign time, as we are casting all our cares, all our anxieties upon Him.'" Anxiety is a fascinating word in the Greek because it speaks of that which is being drawn into and separated, going in different directions so that when we feel anxious, we really do feel inside tension and stress. That's why worrying about tomorrow, as Spurgeon said, doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrows.
It just empties today of its joys. That's why we're to pay attention to the things of today and to not be anxious for tomorrow. But of all those anxieties that creep into our hearts and minds, we are to cast them on the Lord, not just those anxieties that you think you have control over, but even those that you know you don't, casting all of them and leaving them with Him. Luther said something that I often don't quote because it can be misunderstood. He said something to the effect of, pray and let God worry about it. Now we know that God does not worry, but Luther's point was bring it to God and leave it with God. We don't have to continually pray the same thing as often as we can possibly pray it, as often as we think of it because some things are just too painful to think about. We can pray it and leave it with God. Cast our anxieties upon Him.
Why? Because He cares for us. This is the language of Scripture in Psalm 55 verse 22. Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you. He shall never permit the righteous to be moved. That we would be a people who are regularly casting our cares and leaving our cares with Him. And lastly to James in chapter 5. James chapter 5 and verse 16, Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. In this sense, prayer is efficacious, but we understand that ultimately the power of prayer is not in the prayer of itself, nor is the power in us. Still there is truth in what James is teaching in how we are to live our lives righteously, praying that God would hear our prayers because this is the truth of God, that the righteous man's active prayers or working prayers are working or are effectual.
Again, according to the will of God, according to the name and the character of Jesus Christ. But ultimately, friends, we don't believe in the power of prayer. We believe in the power of God, and that's precisely why we pray. We who understand who God is and God's sovereignty know that we go to Him and pray to Him, not because we are believing fundamentally in our words or in the power of those words, but rather we believe dependently on the power of God. When I was a student in seminary, I served one of the professors for a few years, and as I would make my way back and forth down the hallway to the office suite of the professors to classrooms, I would pass a picture on the wall that was an advertisement for this seminary for many years ago.
This poster and this advertisement made a tremendous impression on me. There was a man in prayer on his knees, and over the photo of this man in prayer on his knees it said, even when Christians disagree, we should all share the same position. We have differences among us, but we have the same authority. We look to the same unchangeable and infallible Word of God, and the beautiful thing that we all have in common is that we all have the same best friend.
We all have the same closest companion. We all have the same God and Father and Savior praying through the Spirit, and we can go to Him at any time, anywhere. We don't need special beads, a special carpet, a special hat. We don't need to pray in a special direction. All we need to do is to go to Him, and He will hear us. Paul saying pray without ceasing is not to burden us.
It's to liberate us from our burdens. What a timely and helpful reminder from Burke Parsons on this Monday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Today's message was from this year's Ligonier Ministries National Conference. If you'd like to join us next year in Orlando, along with thousands of other Christians, you can secure the early bird discount when you visit ligonier.org slash 2025, or use the link in the podcast show notes. It will be April 10 through 12 on the theme I Will Build My Church.
So visit ligonier.org slash 2025 to learn more and to register. Also, until midnight, when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, or when you call us at 800-435-4343, we'll send you two resources to help you in prayer and the Christian life. John Kelvin's A Little Book on the Christian Life that Dr. Parsons helped translate into English, and Dr. Sproul's title, Does Prayer Change Things? Request both at renewingyourmind.org or using the link in the podcast show notes.
And remember, this offer ends at midnight. What does it mean that Christians are in Christ? And how does that help us see the beauty of the good news of the Gospel? That'll be Michael Reeves' topic when he joins us tomorrow here on Renewing Your Mind. .
