How to Actually Pray

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Let your kingdom come and your will be done. What we're doing is surrendering ourselves to pursue God's agenda on earth. Prayer is not supposed to be getting God to help us in all of our agendas.

It's supposed to be seeking to join God where He is working. That one thought will revolutionize your prayer life. Welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovich, and we are so glad that you're back with us today. Over the next two days, we're going to walk through the Lord's Prayer together here on the program. Most of us can recite it, but do we really know what we're praying and how to use it as a guide for all of our prayers?

We know you don't want to miss a single message here on the program, so if you ever find yourself falling behind, you can catch up on previous broadcasts online at jdgreer.com. But for now, grab your Bible and let's learn more about how to actually pray. Here's Pastor J.D. Luke chapter 11, if you got your Bible this weekend, we are in the second of a four-week series on prayer called Ask. The title of the series comes from Paul Miller's observation in a book called A Praying Life, the best book that I've ever read on prayer. He makes an observation in the book that you could summarize all of Jesus's teachings on prayer.

You could summarize them by simply saying, just ask. Last week, we saw that Jesus instructed us to pray desperately, boldly, persistently, and trustingly. We've got issues. We got issues, I've told you, when it comes to prayer. I've explained before that we often, in our prayers, fill it up with little things that just don't make sense, or we repeat phrases, or God's name, or the word just over and over and over again.

Father God, I just want to thank you, Father God. I just want to ask, Father God, that you just... Or maybe in your small group, you've got what we call the prayer lecturer. They're kind of praying, but they're more lecturing everybody else and gossiping about other people while they do it. We call it preach praying. Lord, I beseech you to be with Rachel and her new boyfriend as they deal with purity.

Lord, I know that you've called us to purity in our innermost parts, and Lord, sometimes I just see lust in their eyes, so Lord, help them. John Chris, John Chris says, he says, you ever have somebody in your small group ask you to pray for something that's just so dumb that you think, nope, I'm not praying for that? He said, a person in my small group said the other day, would you pray for my son? He's in the finals of a karate tournament. I thought, what exactly am I supposed to pray?

Jesus, when Connor steps out onto that mat, would you just guide his foot into that other little boy's face? Jesus, be the great physician that you are and just render his opponent unconscious, Lord. And I'm still not sure what we're doing when we pray for our food. Lord, bless this food and the hands that prepared it. Why just the hands?

Why not the whole body? But see, see, that's a question you're not allowed to ask in church. Next time you pray over a meal, try asking God to bless the feet or the kidneys of the people that prepared it.

Just see what kind of looks that gets you in your small group. So anyway, all that to say, I'm really grateful that we got a story right here in the New Testament where Jesus specifically explains to the disciples how to pray. This he's going to give us is a prayer outline or maybe a prayer template, if you will, that really ought to shape all of the prayers that you pray, at least the extended prayers that you pray. It is encouraging to me. I told you that the very first thing that Jesus dealt with when he taught on prayer was the problem of unanswered prayer. So that's where we went last week. This week, we're going to deal with what is perhaps the second greatest obstacle to people praying.

And that is simply the admission. I don't know how to pray for both of these questions. We've been in Luke 11. Remember this discussion began with a question that Jesus was asked. Now, Jesus, Luke 11, verse one was prayed in a certain place. And when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray.

Just like John taught his disciples. And Jesus said to them, okay, when you pray, say, and he's going to tell them what they're supposed to go through when they pray. Before we get into that though, I want you just to notice that we do have to be taught how to pray. Notice that Jesus did not just say, oh, you don't need to be taught to pray. Just say whatever you want. All the prayers that people pray are the same and all equally acceptable before God.

You see the truth is they're not. There is a specifically Christian way to pray. In fact, in the gospel of Matthew's recording of this same teaching, Matthew tells us that before Jesus gives his disciples instructions on how to pray, he first gives them some instructions about how not to pray.

So real quick, let me jump there to the book of Matthew. You can stay there in Lou, but let me just show you what Jesus says is the way not to pray. Every religion you see teaches its adherence how to pray. But there is something fundamentally different about Christian prayer. Here's what Jesus says in Matthew. When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases like the Gentiles. Read Gentiles there. It's just people who don't know God, the biblical God. Heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do it for they think that they're going to be heard for their many words.

Do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you even ask him. It is interesting to me that one of the only kinds of prayer that Jesus criticizes are prayers that are too long to which many of you said, amen, right? But just remember, he never one time said anything about sermons that are too long. Okay, just saying that, just throwing that out there. He said, well, what did Jesus have against long prayers?

Exactly. Well, see these prayers thought that they would be heard because of their much speaking or their many words. They thought that they're because they prayed a certain amount of time or because they use certain phrases or because they fasted or because they got themselves into some spiritual state that then God would hear them.

You know, it's interesting that almost every single religion in the world teaches some version of this. If you will repeat enough, hail Mary's. If you will recite enough verses from the Quran, chants from the Bhagavad Gita. If you will yell loud enough at God saying, yes, Lord, yes, Lord enough, then God will hear you.

That word many that Jesus uses there before many words, literally in Greek means anxious. Is God gonna hear me? Did I use the right words? Did I pray long enough?

Have I broken through? Am I spiritual enough for God to hear me? No, Jesus says you by contrast, you pray to a loving father, a father who knows what you need before you even ask him, a father who cares about his children more than you care about yours and he only thinks about them with good. I know of a summit family who adopted a number of children from a South Asian country. One of them was adopted when he was a little bit older, five or six years old. And the mom said that she often got frustrated and just heartbroken because the little boy would try to manipulate situations to get his way instead of just asking her for what he needed. And she said, I'm heartbroken because he still thinks like an orphan most of the time, even though now he is a beloved part of the family. You see you and I have been adopted into God's family, but a lot of times we still approach God like we're an orphan. We approach God as if we have to make ourselves worthy, as if we weren't really his beloved children.

Adoption is a one-time decision of the parent that does not fluctuate with the behavior of the child. You and I have been made children to the finished work of Christ and there's nothing we can add to that, nothing we can take away from it. And there's nothing anymore we need to do to entice God to hear us. It is given to us fully in our position in Christ. Prayer begins by embracing the fatherhood of God.

In fact, J.I. Packer, the theologian says, if you want to measure how much someone really understands Christianity, find out how much they make of the fatherhood of God, how much they treasure it, how much it means to them. And you'll know how much they understand Christianity. So it's no surprise that that's where Jesus starts with this prayer.

Back to Luke. This is the first thing that you're going to say is our father, our father, Paul Miller, in a praying life, says how we approach God in prayer is where we demonstrate whether we really do understand the gospel. He says, when we slow down to pray, we're immediately confronted with how unspiritual we are. You ever feel this?

I do. Then I start thinking like, am I using the right words? And am I in a state that I can really ask this? And am I asking for the right motives?

Am I asking really for kingdom purposes? And I just start really analyzing it and I feel totally unspiritual. All right, he goes on and says, in contrast, children never get frozen by their selfishness. They just come as they are, totally self-absorbed. I can tell you, my kids never come in and say, Dad, I got something I really want to ask you, but I just feel like I'm, I feel like my heart's not right when I'm asking this. And I feel like I'm not really loving and generous toward my siblings. No, they just come in like, Dad, this is what I want. I don't care about the other three kids. I just want this for me.

Right? They come in self-absorbed. Jesus tells us to become like a little child when we pray. How do little children ask? How do little children ask? They just say what's on their minds.

They've got no awareness of what is appropriate or inappropriate. This isn't just a random observation about how parents respond to little children. This is the gospel. It's the gospel. God accepts us with all of our mess because of the finished work of Christ. We come to him as children.

He goes on and he concludes private personal prayer is one of the last great bastions of legalism in a Christian's life. Now I told you a few weeks ago that some of you have a hard time with concepts like this because you had such a strained relationship with your dad. Maybe your dad was quick to anger, or maybe he was inattentive to you, or maybe he was absent altogether. But I encouraged you a few weeks ago to stop seeing your heavenly father through the lens of your earthly one and flip it. Instead, start evaluating your earthly father for the lens of your heavenly one. Maybe your earthly dad didn't care.

And maybe he looked at you more as a nuisance than anything else. But see, your heavenly father can't stop thinking about you. He dances over you constantly with singing and he's so attentive to you that he knows even when a single hair falls from your head. Your earthly father may have been self absorbed, but your heavenly father was so into you that he absorbed your pain on the cross so that you would not have to face the eternal consequences of your choices. He's the real heavenly father. So you go before the throne of God boldly and you say to the God of the universe, I've got a need dad.

And you just tell him what's on your heart without all the posturing, without obsessing about how unspiritual you are or without obsessing about whether or not you're saying the right words. What Jesus is telling us is you were going to approach the God of the universe as a child of their father. And you say, dad, I've got a need. And that father who watches over you and looks at you so tenderly is ready to respond to your needs. So put up the posturing and just believe the gospel.

You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. The Bible calls us to honor our parents. And one way that we can do that is by praying for them. Little children often see their mothers and fathers as the ones with all the answers. It's not until we grow up that we realize our parents are just like us, regular people in need of prayer. The book Five Things to Pray for Your Parents will help you to pray rich, intentional prayers for your mother or father, be they biological or adoptive, working or retired, frail or fit, married or separated, believers or unbelievers.

Whatever their situation, if we want to love them well, we need to pray. This book is one of three that we're offering in a bundle this month, which includes how to pray for our parents, our children, and our community. We'll send the set as our thanks for your gift to the ministry right now.

So give us a call at 866-335-5220 or check it out at jdgreer.com. Now let's get back to our teaching for the day. Here's Pastor JD. Our father, our father, second phrase, hallowed be your name, hallowed be your name. Now, before I explain this, let me just point out that I think it's interesting that before we get into any requests in the prayer, which is what comprises most of our prayer times is requests, what we have are several phrases that focus on our relationship with God. And what that shows us is that prayer is more about being in right relation to God than it is getting through some laundry list of needs that God already knows about anyway. Hallowed be your name should precede any request that we make of God. Adoration of God precedes request of God. This is a request for God to be hallowed first in our eyes and then through us for him to be hallowed in the world's eyes by what God does in us and through us.

Now, I know what your question is. You're like, well, what does hallowed mean? I knew of a guy who grew up in a Catholic church who said that until he was eight years old, he thought that God's name was Howard. And I said, well, why'd you think that? He said, well, we said it every week, our father who art in heaven, Howard be your name. So no, that's not what it means.

Hallowed in this context means most beautiful, most beautiful. God is better than anything you're asking him for. Many of us approach God like only a means to an end. God, get me out of this jam. God, give me healing.

Help me do well on this test. God, get me this job. But seeing God as hallowed or holy means seeing him as greater than all earthly gifts.

It means saying to God, God, I would love to have the new job. I would love to have a healed body, but God, you're better than any of those things. And if I don't get them, yes, I'll be a little disappointed, but it's not going to affect my joy.

It's not going to affect my confidence in life because God father, I have you the greatest of all possessions. One of my favorite quiet time books is called the Valley of Vision. I go through it from time to time.

I'm actually in the middle of it right now. It's a book of Puritan prayers from the 16th and 17th centuries where these Puritans prayed during times of great persecution for God to open up a Valley of Vision to them where they could see God. And they would say, God, when we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, God open our eyes in this Valley to see you, because if we see you, then we will fear no evil because we will know that you are with us. Turn this Valley of a Shadow of Death into a Valley of Vision.

Let us see you because then it will be enough. That's what you mean when you say hallowed be your name. God show me how much of a possession you are and how rich a treasure I possess in you. The other thing that hallowed means here in this context is most worthy.

Most worthy. This is the recognition that the point of my life is to give glory to you. It's the recognition that life and all these requests that I'm making are not really about me or prospering me. They're about your name and your kingdom. You see, a lot of times we rush right into prayer forgetting why we exist in the first place. You and I exist for the glory of God.

That means that God is not our servant that we put to work for our purposes or as I've explained he's not a pinata and your prayer is not the whacking stick by which you whack God in just the right way with your prayer and out of him comes the candy that you need for your party. I've tried to illustrate this to you by urging you over the years to think of your life in many ways as if it were a movie. Movies always have a major character and some minor characters and I've explained that what happens to the minor characters is not nearly as important as what happens to the major character because the story is defined by and carried by what happens to the major character. For example, most of you in this room have no idea who Biggs Darklighter is. Now you don't know who he is only the geekiest of Star Wars nerds knows who Biggs Darklighter is but he was the x-wing pilot in the first Star Wars movie who shielded Luke Skywalker from getting shot so that he could destroy the Death Star. That means without Biggs Darklighter the whole Star Wars saga, all 52 movies or however many are out there now, would never have gotten off the ground yet you've never heard of him. He's like the unsung hero of Star Wars because without him there's no story.

You've never heard of it yet I would suggest to you that if he could be here with us today back from his grave in a galaxy far far away he would probably say I don't care that you don't know me because my small sliver of the story was only there to serve the purposes of the main character Luke Skywalker. God's glory is the main character of our lives and we recognize that the point in all things that happen to us is to put us into a theater into a situation where we can give glory to God so that other people would say hallowed be his name. You see God might hallow his name before others by prospering you so that you can leverage your success to extend his kingdom and so that you can give God credit for what he does in your life but he also he also might hallow his name by letting you suffer so that you can show everybody in the midst of your suffering that you can have joy even in bad circumstances or bad health because he is better than health or anything else you're asking him for. You see the point of our lives is not living and dying or prospering or failing the point is giving glory to God and sometimes God is glorified yes when sick people get well but sometimes he's glorified when sick people suffer well and yes even when they die well so we say God hallowed be your name.

Here's your third phrase that we're supposed to use or third and fourth I guess together here let your kingdom come and your will be done. Here what we're doing is surrendering ourselves to pursue God's agenda on earth. You see prayer is not supposed to be getting God to help us in all of our agendas it's supposed to be seeking to join God where he is working. That one thought will revolutionize your prayer life if you will say it's not here for me to to get God to help me with my agenda I'm here to get on God's agenda and when I figure that out then I know how to pray. Two key things here to accomplishing this number one pray the scripture because scripture is how we best know what God wants to do in the world. You see our faith is supposed to function think of it like a wire that connects the power of God to the thing that needs it.

Imagine up here I've got a big big appliance that's just totally lifeless and I got a a power source that has infinite amounts of energy. I take the wire and I get that power to this appliance that's what we do when we add our faith to God's promises. We are adding our faith to the thing that releases it in the situation that needs it. Here is what we often say around the summit church the prayers that start in heaven are the ones that are heard by heaven. If you really want to have a prayer that's heard by heaven just start with one that starts in heaven because then you're praying in a way that releases God's power it means you should know the bible and pray scripture.

That's what it means. Here's what Mark Batterson says he says one thing is certain our most powerful prayers are hyperlinked to the promises of God. Now for those of you that are like older than 15 you're like what does the word hyperlink mean? You know when you're reading something on the internet and it's got like a underline on it you can click and go to a totally another article right what it means is that when we listen to your prayers I ought to hear in your prayers a passage of scripture I could click on metaphorically speaking and I could go to the place in the bible where the thing that you're praying is promised by God and guess what happens then? Then all of a sudden we start linking to the power of God when you know you're praying promises of God you can pray with holy confidence. Let me give you a couple really practical suggestions on this one all right two of them first one is when you spend time in the word let me encourage you to do something that I do and that is as you're reading the bible you highlight certain things in the bible that stand out to you now watch this then you jump start your prayer time by going back and praying the things that you highlighted because what you're doing is you're taking the things you just saw in the word and you're praying them into existence in fact we use an acronym here to encourage you in your bible study that I'll come in to you the acronym is here and it's a way that you should read the bible here h stands for highlight highlight what stands out to you as you read it e is examine make sure you know what it means a is apply figure out where it applies to your life r respond and one of the first ways you respond is by praying that into existence pray the scripture here's the other application point memorize scripture y'all my favorite prayers are those who lay scripture all throughout their prayers and when I hear them pray I can just follow the scripture and I can hear one phrase just kind of go right into another one and I know they're using the words of scripture you want to make a pastor's dream come true then you make it where every time I hear you pray I just hear the promises of scripture that are writing your prayers for you do you know how much better a prayer would be if you committed a bunch of verses to memory that you could just bring those words to bear and every prayer that you offer come up with 10 verses that you want to memorize over the next five months that you can just begin to insert into the prayers that you pray so that you are praying the promises of scripture that would bring so much energy and so much excitement and so much confidence into your prayer life so memorize scripture for prayer that's the first thing is is pray the scripture um second thing number two on this pray with the Holy Spirit you see the Spirit is the one who's responsible for extending God's kingdom on earth and the Spirit is the one who knows the will of God so what when we say your kingdom come and your will be done that is a request for the Spirit to make it known to me I am praying with the Spirit for the extension of God's kingdom and for knowledge of his will prayer is supposed to be listen to this a two-way conversation as the Holy Spirit reveals what he wants for God's kingdom the Spirit is supposed to pray through you so let me encourage you to develop the habit listen of listening prayer most of us think of prayer as only talking think of it as a two-way conversation where there's some talking and there's also some listening while you pray now I know I know I know I know we got to be careful here I know I know we got to be careful here because there's all kinds of people who feel like they hear things from God and you're like that's not really from God but here's what I know here's what I know I've told you this I think before um there are 59 times that the Holy Spirit of God shows up in the book of Acts 59 of the 59 times he shows up in Acts and 36 of the 59 he is speaking here's what's here's what's frustrating frustrating for me is is is it doesn't usually tell us how he speaks just that he speaks and that's what I want to know I want to know how he speaks so Acts 13 2 the Holy Spirit said to the church separate Barnabas and Saul for the work of the ministry and I'm like how'd he say it did everybody get like a like an alert on their phone at the same time like oh you know Holy Spirit said yes that would be awesome that's not what happened all right um how do they know I don't know and I think the ambiguity is intentional because I think there's supposed to be a great deal of humility about what we think we're hearing from the spirit because more havoc has been wreaked in the world following the words God just told me than any other phrase so I think there's supposed to be some humility about how we think the spirit is speaking so that when we say thus says the Lord we got a chapter and verse to prove it but you can't therefore use that to say that God no longer speaks to his people on earth because that's the theme of the entire book of Acts and I'm sorry you're like well things are different than they are now you cannot convince me that the only book that God gave us that is has stories in it of what it looks like to walk with the spirit is filled with a bunch of stories of people whose experiences have nothing in common with us he the spirit prayed to the church in the book of Acts he's supposed to pray through us today so here's my suggestion for you what if you begin your prayer time by just saying this God I don't want to just pray to you today I want to pray with you today I want to pray to the father with the spirit you're listening to a powerful message on prayer from pastor JD Greer here on summit life so JD I spend a lot of time praying for my kids but I often find myself praying the same things over and over so how can one of the short books that we're offering five things to pray for your kids help me yeah molly me and you both as I've become a parent to be honest with you I've become less confident in some of my great theories on parenting the one thing that I have grown in over the years is how to pray for them and knowing what scripture teaches me to pray for them can't tell you how comforting it is when you got teenagers or you got young kids like yours molly toddlers and sometimes you're like I don't know what to do here and then to be able to open up something that walks me through the instruction and the promises in scripture and say pray this for your kid it's part of a three-book bundle that we're giving away how to pray for your kids how to pray for your parents and I pray for your city if you'll reach out to us we'd love to get this to you I think it will be a real blessing to you ask for your set when you donate to the ministry today the suggested amount is 35 or more and as you know every penny of it helps us keep this gospel-centered bible teaching on the radio and web call 866-335-5220 or give and request the five things to pray bundle online at jdgrier.com i'm molly vinovich and i'm so glad to have you with us tomorrow we're going to continue this study on how to actually pray so be sure to listen again tuesday to summit life with jd greer today's program was produced and sponsored by jd greer ministries