Prayer to God, Your Sovereign Father

Today on Summit Life, an important message from J.D.

Greer. Jesus reveals two attributes or character qualities of God that if you got these qualities, it would transform prayer from being something that you have to do to being something that you get to do. I wouldn't have to stand up here and compel you to pray. There is no force in the world that would be able to keep you from prayer if you understood really these two qualities. Welcome to Summit Life with pastor, author, and theologian J.D. Greer.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovich, and we are so glad that you're back with us today. I think we all know that we are supposed to pray, but what exactly is prayer at its most basic level? Is it a wish list that we send up to the genie in the sky, a way to unleash the power of positive thinking, or is it just a waste of time telling God things that he already knows?

Well, fortunately, prayer isn't any of those things. It's so much more, and today pastor J.D. takes a fresh look at one of the basics of our faith in a series he called Start. So let's join pastor J.D. now for today's message that he titled, Prayer to God, Your Sovereign Father. Here's bad cop, pastor. For most of you, your prayer lives are pathetic. You're the bad cop, pastor.

I shared with you earlier this year that D.A. Carson says if you really want to embarrass the average Christian, just ask him or her to tell you about his private time with God yesterday. We feel good about a lot of questions where I asked like, oh, tell me about your generosity. Tell me about how you serve God.

How many Bible verses do you know? You feel good about that, but if you want to embarrass the average Christian, just ask them to describe their time in prayer with God yesterday. And that is a real burden to me, Summit Church, because as I'm going to show you today, according to Jesus, you can measure a person's relationship to God by how much they love to pray.

And by the way, not even how much they actually do pray, because I'm going to show you there's a lot of wrong reasons people can have for praying, but how much you love to pray and how much you do it when nobody else is around. That is the burden. That's bad cop. Good cop.

Good cop. Many of you struggle to pray because you just don't know how to make your prayer times meaningful, despite your best intentions. You know, you have this idea that prayer is supposed to be some sweet mystical communion where you get swept up in the arms of Jesus and visions of rapture now burst on your sight.

But that's just not how it is for you. You close your eyes and you go into like a time warp. And 20 minutes later, you come to and for the last several minutes, you've been thinking about the blacklist episode you watched on TV last night. And you don't even know the stream of consciousness that got you there, right? You know, you're like, you're like, you were thinking, you were praying for your kids.

And that reminded you that you got to arrange a ride home from soccer practice for one of your kids, which reminded you that you don't think your son is being honest with you about how he's not doing well in school, which reminds you of what a good detective you would have been, which reminded you of the blacklist episode you watched last night. But the point is, you just don't feel like it's that significant. It's not the sweet hour prayer that you always thought.

Others of you, if you were honest, and you are not, sorry, bad cop slipped in there again for a minute. But if you were honest, you would admit that you're just not totally sure whether prayer actually works. You never say that at church, but you're just not really sure because sometimes you pray and things happen, but sometimes you pray and they don't. And sometimes you forget to pray and the thing that you should have prayed for ends up happening anyway. And so you're like, I'm just not sure that this actually makes a difference.

It just doesn't seem like it's that effective. And I know that you sit there with that pious, innocent look on your face, but I know inside you going, Oh, it's totally me. I have a burden for this.

Like I've told you for two reasons. One, according to Jesus, as I said, how much you love to pray is an indication of how much you actually know God. Number two, all the blessings, according to the Bible, all the blessings that God wants to bestow on your life, he does so through prayer. Prayer is the conduit, not a conduit, but the conduit by which we lay hold of the blessing and the power of God. And so when you sever your relationship with prayer, it's like cutting the wire that connects you to electricity. You are cutting yourself off from the means by which God puts his power into your family. There are 667 recorded prayers in the Bible.

There are 454 recorded answers to those prayers. Prayer is the conduit by which all these things come into your life. And if you cut yourself off, you're cutting yourself off from the power of God. That's why I've loved this quote.

I've shared it with you before. The one concern of the devil is to keep the saints from prayer. Our enemy fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion.

I might even add prayerless parenting. He laughs at our toil. He mocks at our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray. Prayer turns ordinary mortals into men of power. Prayer brings fire.

It brings rain. It brings life. It brings God.

There is no power like that of prevailing prayer. We're going to look at the model prayer that Jesus gave. It's in Matthew 6. If you have a Bible, we'd invite you to open there. Matthew 6. There are so many things in this prayer we call the Lord's Prayer that we could focus on.

We could preach a hundred sermons on it probably. We're only going to look at the first two phrases because in the first two phrases, God, Jesus reveals two attributes or character qualities of God that if you got these qualities, it would transform prayer from being something that you have to do to being something that you get to do. I wouldn't have to stand up here and compel you to pray. There is no force on the world that would be able to keep you from prayer if you understood really these two qualities. These two qualities are pretty unique to the Christian religion. They're in the first phrases of Matthew 6, but before we get to that, Jesus sets all this up by explaining to you the wrong way to pray, which is how most people who do pray, pray.

This is bad cop Jesus, chapter 6, verse 5. When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. You see, 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 already received their reward. Jesus is here describing a person who loves to pray a lot because he or she has figured out a way that prayers a way that they can gain respect from other people. In other words, they're using a relationship with God to gain something that they really want and that is the admiration and respect of others. But when you pray, Jesus said, you should 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. What's he going to reward you with?

Well, what's there in secret? The heavenly father is. The heavenly father is the reward.

His presence is the primary, ought to be the primary reward of your prayer. The main reward, Jesus says, of true prayer is knowing God. God is his own reward and the person who understands that does not need to be compelled to pray.

They do it because they want to love and know God more and just be in his presence. Now, specifically here, Jesus is talking about people who use God, use prayer as a means of gaining respect, but I think you could expand his reasoning to include anybody who uses God for any other thing that they want from God. For example, there are many people that use God as a means to a good life, a good marriage, finding a husband, a stable career. You use God as a means of avoiding hell. These are all good things, but you don't really love God and you love those things primarily and you think of God as the best means to get to those things. Does that make sense?

Here's another way of asking the question. Do you find God primarily useful or beautiful? Is God primarily useful or beautiful? Useful means that you know that he's the right way that you can get the family that you want or you can avoid hell or whatever it is that you want from God.

Useful. Or is God primarily beautiful? Beautiful means that you spend time with him just for the pleasure of knowing him.

He is the reward. You understand the difference, right? Say you've got a business partner that you don't really like, but you and him or her make a lot of money together. When you talk to them, conversations are all business because they're useful in getting the money that you want. Compare that to when you have a lover that you're just infatuated with. You get together with no agenda. You just love being together. I remember dating a girl in high school that before we went out every time, I would have to come up with a list of things to talk to her about because conversations were so flat and boring.

Now, the handwriting was written on the wall for that relationship, right? I compare that to when I met Veronica, who would become my wife. We would get together and talk until 3 a.m. about absolutely nothing. What do you want to talk about?

I don't know. What do you want to talk about? I just love to hear the sound of your voice.

I love the way your nostrils flare when you laugh. I love being with you. When you love somebody and you find them beautiful, you love being in their presence. Jesus says the way to know how beautiful you find God is by how much you pray in secret. It's not praying in front of other people because a lot of people love to pray in front of other people because you're just like, I love to use the phrases. He's like, no, it's how much you pray when it's just you and God. You don't use him for anything as much as you're just finding him beautiful. It's the joy of being in his presence.

Is God useful to you or is he beautiful? I'll tell you where I see this in my own life. Have I ever told you the time that I'm most sensitive to confess my sin and get caught up on my prayer life? There's one time that it happens consistently.

Saturday afternoon, 12 o'clock. Why then? It's not because of college football because I don't really care about that, right? But why am I trying to get, because I'm about to preach and I really want God's blessing on my sermon so I get all right with God so that God will bless my sermon. In other words, I find God useful but not beautiful. I get all stressed out.

My wife, every week she calls it my PMS stage, pre-message syndrome. Her words, not mine. But she says, she's like, this is not a love for God. It's done because you're using God to bless your sermon.

What is your prayer life like in secret? Because Jesus said the way you can know how beautiful you find God is whether you love and pray. Something to consider as we break from our teaching for just a moment here on Summit Life. You know, our goal on this radio program each day is to keep you saturated in the truths of the gospel.

But we have other resources available that have that same goal in mind. And one of our most strategic and powerful ways that we keep the gospel front and center is through our daily email devotional from Pastor JD. Couldn't we all use encouragement first thing in the morning or after work to remind us of God's love? I know the busyness of life can quickly choke out any joy that we feel in our walk with God. So let's remind ourselves moment by moment of His love and devotion to us and engage with His word even more.

Sign up for this free resource at jdcareer.com slash resources. Now let's return for the conclusion of today's message on Summit Life. Once again, here's Pastor JD. Verse seven, when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do. Read Gentiles as people who don't know God as father.

I'll get to that in a minute. But when they think that they'll be heard for their many words, for their many words, do not be like them for your heavenly father knows what you have need of before you even ask him. Here he's talking about people who think God's going to hear them because they pray long enough or shout loud enough or because they use some magical phrase that God just really likes to hear that loosens him up. The word that Jesus literally uses there for many words is the word batalageo in Greek, which means babbling. It means when you pray, you're intense, you're sweating and screaming and stomping your feet.

You keep repeating yourself when you think because of that, oh, God hears you. Ironically, most religions have some version of this, right? So if you're a Catholic, it's the Hail Marys. If you're Islamic, it's reciting verses from the Quran.

If you're Buddhist, it's chanting things or Hindi from the Bhagavad Gita. In churches like ours, it's if you yell loud enough and say, yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, Lord, I believe it, Lord. Then if you say that enough, then God is going to feel kind towards you and give you what you're asking for.

When you think about it, it's actually kind of dumb. Of all the things that might win God's approval, just repeating ourselves over and over is what he really wants. I have four kids.

Every one of them has gone through this stage. My four-year-old son is in it now where they think the key to getting what they want is just to ask over and over and over and over and over again. My son, my four-year-old son's like, dad, can I have some chicken nugget, chicken nugget, chicken nugget, chicken nugget, chicken nugget. And I'm like, ah, you sound like it's rain. Chicken nugget, chicken nugget, chicken nugget.

Go ask your mom. Because he's not loosening me up and making me feel more disposed toward him. He's annoying me, right? The real problem, Jesus says, with this approach is the assumption among the Gentiles or people that don't know God is that God is naturally hostile toward us. And so these techniques in prayer are necessary to make him feel more disposed to us.

These are the combination on the lot that unlocks his affection. But Jesus, the gospel that he is preaching is not that you will finally, if you are good enough, become somebody that God will approve of. The gospel is that Christ gives you his righteousness as a gift and you're accepted on his behalf, on his merits. You're adopted as a son in him. So that's why Jesus says in verse eight, your father knows what you need of before you even ask him.

So you should pray like this. Start with our father. He's pointing to the closest possible relationship with God. The word Jesus uses literally means daddy. Daddy, don't think of a big state like our father. That's how we always say it in church, like our father. He, the word he used was daddy.

He says, when you pray, you come to him like a daddy. I think about my own kids. They don't have to, they don't have to change my heart toward them. They don't have to repeat phrases. They don't have to earn my affection. They have it.

They've already got it. Even when they haven't been perfect. And even when they failed, you say, well, you say, well, what about our sin? What about the places where we haven't lived up to what God wants us to live up to? The gospel is that God has adopted us into his family as sons and daughters on the basis of the finished work of Christ. I have been given in Jesus Christ's status as a son. You talk about acceptance. Every time I come into God, the words that God said to Jesus, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

That's what God says to me. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased because God made Jesus to be my sin so that in him, I would get his righteousness. So I come into the throne room, not as somebody who needs approval, but as somebody who shares in the very approval of Christ. The most astounding and unique of all Christian revelations was that God was a father. There are other religions consistently present God as primarily something else. For example, ancient Canaanite religion, like the Babylonian religion, their chief God was the God Marduk. And you see ancient depictions of him. He's the ruler with a bunch of servants.

In fact, in their creation account, that God Marduk creates humans because he wants servants and slaves. Aristotle called God the great uncaused cause. He's primarily the creator. Islam calls him the almighty. But from the very beginning, God revealed himself through the Bible as a father, not creator, not glorious, not judge, not divine policeman father.

You see, let me take you deep for a minute. God for all eternity has been a father. God for all of eternity has not been a creator and he's not been a judge. He became a creator when he created us, but creation is not eternal, which means there was a point in time at which he became a creator. He became a judge when there was something to judge, but from all eternity, he was not a judge. But from all eternity, he has been a father because for all eternity, God has been in Trinity and Trinity is father, son, and Holy Spirit. There was never a time there was not a son, which means there was never a time in which he was not a father. And a father is inherently life-giving.

He is inherently outgoing, which means that the very core essence of who he is, is love. That's why John says, the apostle says in 1 John 4-8, God is love. Not that God loves now that he's created, but that God is in his very being love because in his very being, he is father, son, and Holy Spirit. He has always existed in love because he has always existed as father, son, and Holy Spirit. Well, see, God created us, John 17 tells us, to share in that love. God created us as he flowed out, the love of the Trinity flowed out, and he created us as a father creates children. But we sinned and we made ourselves his enemies.

So what did he do? He bought us back so we could again relate to him as children due to a father. The essence of salvation is not that you're a slave that's been forgiven, it's that you're a son who has been restored. Talk about something that will revolutionize how you see God.

He is not a divine policeman, like many of you think he is. When you think about God, you think you got to come to him and kind of negotiate with him the way you would a policeman that's like, hey, I had the traffic cam on you all day yesterday and you did this and X, Y, and Z. And you're like, okay, well, if I do this, does that make up for that?

And how do I get out of this? Can I reduce the sentence on this one? That's how you relate to God. But see, if you know God as father, if you understand that the way parents that we feel about our children is in some small way, however weakly and faintly, just a glimpse of how God, our heavenly father feels about us, it transforms your relationship.

You see, I can appreciate a policeman who lets me off of a violation, but I never loved that policeman. I love a father who showers me with love and protective care and that's what our God is. J. I. Packer, the theologian says, if you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, watch this, find out how much he or she makes of the thought of being God's child. Having God as his father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.

If I asked you one word to describe God, is it father? Incidentally, but not surprisingly, it is bad father experiences that are one of the primary things that keep people from faith in God. Sigmund Freud, I think I know, he famously pointed out that there's nothing more destructive to somebody's faith in God than a bad relationship with their dad. And he actually had a terrible relationship with his dad and he was an atheist.

I was reading this book that explained that almost all of the great atheists of the past 200 years have had one thing in common. They've all had terrible relationships with their dads. Freud, Huxley, Voltaire, Hume, Madeline Murray, O'Hare, all of them have bad relationships with their dads. And this book concluded that somebody's view of their father is usually the weightiest factor in the development of their faith.

I'll give you just one example. The postmodern philosopher Michel Foucault, and Michel is a dude, the majority of his life's work was on the evils of authority. But when you read his biography, you realize it all seems to go back to his relationship with his dad. Foucault, Sr., see, was a really tough man.

He was a man's man and he was one of France's most famous surgeons. He thought his son, Michel, was not a man of man, that he was a little bit, shall we say, soft, more on the artistic side. So he was constantly berating him for not being manly enough.

He probably shouldn't have named him Michel, okay, for that matter. But he's constantly berating him on that and humiliating him, embarrassing him in front of other people. And even as an eight-year-old son, he would even make him watch the amputation of limbs in his operating room to try to toughen him up. So Foucault, Sr., was a man of manhood, so Foucault grows up not with this understanding of God's fatherly love as being about protection, he associates fatherhood with a whole host of dark images and he grew up resenting and disbelieving. Our view of our father is the weightiest factor in the development of our faith, quite often, because, see, you're created for a heavenly father and how your earthly father was was supposed to be a model for you that taught you about God. So when your relationship with your earthly father goes bad and your father rules you more like the devil does, abusively, selfishly, or he abandons you, that makes it difficult for you to ever believe in God. You think you hate God, but what you actually hate is the devil and you mistake the devil for God because of your dad. So when Jesus taught us to pray, he taught us to pray, say, Daddy, Daddy, would that not change how you pray? If you understand he's not a tyrant to appease, he is not a policeman to negotiate with, he is a father who cherishes you, who watches over you, who says he is so in touch with your life that he knows when even one hair falls from your head, a father who feels every pain before you feel it and as much as you feel it, if not more. Let me take you to a place where God talks about his fatherly relationship to his children. I love this passage, Isaiah 43.

Now says, thus says the Lord, he who created you, old Jacob, he who formed you, old Israel, fear not. See, I've redeemed you. I've called you by your name individually. I called your name.

You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I'm going to go with you into the rivers that won't overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you will not be burned and the flame will not consume you.

Why? Because I am walking with you every step of the way. I am right by your side and I'm feeling everything that you feel.

When you go through the worst things on earth, I'm going through them with you and I'm feeling them with you. Isn't that what a father does? Then the father, when his child is in pain, isn't that father with the child hurting with that child? I think here of when Jesus was by the tomb of Lazarus. It's really a strange scene.

Remember what he does? Shortest verse in the Bible, John 11 35, Jesus wept. My question is, why is he weeping? Doesn't he know that in 10 minutes he's going to raise Lazarus from the dead? So why is he weeping now? I would have been like, hey, quit your crying.

I'm going to fix it. Why is he standing by the tomb weeping if he knows he's about to resolve the situation? Because that's what a father does.

A father stands by his child in pain and weeps with them. He doesn't beat them up with theological answers. He just shoulders their pain and he cries with them. The reason he does that is because he is showing you that in your darkest hour, in your deepest moment, in your point of loneliness and brokenness, how would it change you if you understood that there was a God who stood right beside you in that hour, who wept with you, who felt the pain, who felt the rejection, who felt the sting and literally wept with you in your hour of brokenness. These have been encouraging words today from Pastor J.D.

Greer here on Summit Life. Summit Life exists to bring you Bible teaching and tools that'll help you dive deeper into your walk with God every day. And that's why we're offering a resource this month that will help you remember scripture this year and hopefully for the years to come. The Bible is our foundation, the most important way we hear from God.

So why not become a better student of the Bible by committing more of it to memory? The good news is we're right there with you with our newest set of scripture memory cards. The scripture memory cards come with our thanks for your generous financial gift of $35 or more. Call right now to make your donation and request the set of cards. The number is 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or go online and request them when you visit us at jdgreer.com. By the way, if you haven't checked out Pastor J.D. 's newest podcast called Ask Me Anything, you'll want to do that today. Pastor J.D. gives quick, honest answers to tricky questions, and you can find it online at jdgreer.com or through your favorite podcasting app. I'm Molly Vidovich inviting you to join us on Friday when we'll learn more about the power of prayer. If you're like most people, you've probably been through seasons where your prayers just seem to bounce off the ceiling and hit you in the head.

But get ready for a perspective shift because prayer matters more than you think. Listen Friday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.