Prayer series review
REVIEW:
1. After looking back over the last few weeks, I decided it might be BETTER to take a FINAL PASS at: Taking the Next Step: In Our Spiritual Growth of PRAYER!
- this is such an important subject, that we don’t want to just ‘deal with it’ and move on
- we really want to make sure we “GET IT” and most importantly . . . PRACTICE IT!!!
- which is what we hope to do today at the end our REVIEW (10-15 minutes in prayer together)
2. We want to keep reminding ourselves of this principle which goes along with our 2010 Theme:
> If you’re going to make progress, you have to keep moving! . . . keep taking steps to reach the goal of bringing glory to God by being like Jesus Christ (thinking & actions)
2. We did this series because the Bible places a strong emphasis on the subject of PRAYER:
- Jesus modeled this in His life – and if He prayed, we need to pray!
3. Let’s REVIEW The Purpose of this series has been:
- To help us develop a more biblical understanding of God's purpose and goal in prayer
- To motivate individual believers to pray more and to pray in a more biblical manner
- To help us as a church family grow in our focus and practice of corporate prayer
4. Let’s begin our REVIEW and go back to our 1st study on PRAYER:
- God’s PRECAUTIONS:
I. God’s Precautions Regarding Prayer: What to AVOID – v. 5 - 8
- Knowing the Jewish background (historical context), Jesus was addressing:
A. Ritualized Prayers – v. 5(instead of being sincere (genuine), passionate, humble!!)
B. Long Prayers – v. 5(thinking that was more spiritual – i.e. the length vs. the motivation)
- Jesus warned a/b the scribes: Mark 12:40 – “... for appearance’s sake offer long prayers”
C. Self-Centered Prayer (prayers full of pride; ‘hypocrisy” and it resulted in a FALSE Audience: Man instead of God
D. Meaningless Repetitions – v. 7 – it’s not repetition, Jesus said “MEANINGLESS repetition”
5. The 2nd week our study focused on:
- God’s Pattern for Prayer
- we emphasized: * Prayer begins and ends with the glory of God, not the needs of man!
- the first part of the PATTERN was Jesus’ words:
I. “Our Father Who is in heaven”
> that term “Father” (in reference to God) is reserved for believers only – spiritually speaking, unbelievers have another “father” (John 8:44 – the devil)
> “Our Father” has the implications to dispels FEAR // encourages HOPE // removes LONELINESS // demands OBEDIENCE
- the 2nd part of that PATTERN is:
II. “Hallowed be Thy Name”
- Jesus is pointing out the significance of His Father’s name
- The greatness of that name and the implications of that name that help us to glorify Him!
6. The 3rd week dealt with the 2nd half of that PATTERN:
- God’s Pattern for Prayer – Part 2
III. “Thy Kingdom Come” – v. 10
- we pointed out that Jesus was referring to . . . .a Kingdom NOT of this world
- So, when we pray, “Thy Kingdom come” we are praying for God's rule on earth to begin as Christ assumes His rightful place as THE RULER of the earth (in a literally way)
- This event is described in Revelation 20:1-3 = a literal 1,000 year reign of Christ on this earth sitting on the Throne of David (as was promised in the Davidic covenant)
IV. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” – v. 10
- To pray, “Thy will be done” . . . means to have this understanding:
> While the Bible clearly teaches the absolute sovereignty of God, that same sovereign God commands us to pray “Thy will be done.”
- that affects the actual ‘nature’ or content of our prayers – the actual prayers we offer up to God
A. Things we can pray for that we KNOW are God's will: [EXAMPLES]
B. Things we can pray for that we are not certain, but still need to ask: [EXAMPLES]
Example: Purdue Property purchase and “Capital Campaign’ to raise the money to build these buildings!
NOTE: Let’s PRAY about this at the end of our session!
7. Week #4 focused on:
ØGod’s Petition for Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread”
#1 The Request Deals with the Necessity of Life
“bread” = not only represents food -- but symbolic of ALL our physical needs
- Lesson: The ‘daily bread’ is not sufficient to meet all our needs – we also need God’s Word!
- Moses wrote these words with reference to Israel:
- Deuteronomy 8:3". . . man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.”
#2: The Request Emphasizes the Source of Our Provision
- We can work hard, earn the money, etc. – but we still need God to help us!
#3: The Request Reveals the Heart of the Petition
*QUOTE: “What you pray about is what you depend upon God for.”
#4: The Request Rules out the UNRIGHTEOUS
Point: God is committed to His people - those who know Jesus as their Savior!!
#5: The Request takes it ONE DAY at a time!
Quote: “To accept the Lord’s provisions for the present day without concern for our needs or welfare tomorrow is a testimony of our contentment in His goodness and faithfulness.” (MacArthur)
8. Week #5 was an important part of the study referring to the subject of FORGIVENESS
- God’s Pardon inPrayer: Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
- One of the most important points of that study was:
* We Must Have God’s View of Forgiveness!
1. God forgiveness is conditional upon repentance & confession
- that is clear in. . . :
- Luke 13:3"I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
- He later told the apostles:
- Luke 17:3"Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4 "And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him."
- repentance = a change of the mind (180 degrees opposite)
- confession = to say the same thing (homo = same; logeo [lah-geh-o] = to speak]
Point: There can be no TRUE confession without repentance AND there can be no TRUE repentance without confession!
2. Forgiveness is a promise to not bring up that offense against them to the person’s hurt.
- the key words here are ‘promise’ and ‘to the person’s hurt’
- you may need to bring it up to REMIND them to be careful and don’t make the same mistake again . . . but the it’s not to beat them over the head or to humiliate them!
3. Forgiveness does not equal ‘forgetting.’
“Forgetting” is PASSIVE! (it occurs over time, depending on the severity of the offense, and even to some degree, how the situation was handled)
POINT: We Need to PRAY for Forgiveness and GRANT Forgiveness because that is what God does and He commands us to do the same . . . .even while we are PRAYING!
9. Our FINAL study of this subject focused on:
- God’s Protection inPrayer: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”
-. We have the world, our flesh, and the devil to struggle with in this area of temptation
Point: No wonder Jesus included these words in His model prayer
- there are 2 very important principles to keep in mind:
1. The Petition Speaks of God's Protection.
- the idea of ‘temptation’ = deals with a testing or a proving
- Here is it seems to parallel the term ‘evil’
> indicating that it has in view enticement to sin instead of facing a particular type of ‘trials’ or ‘testing of one’s faith’ (like suffering because of what someone did to you, it could be persecution, or finding out you have cancer)
- we pointed out that there are elements of being tempted to sin even during times of trials
> your FAITH has to remain strong and you have to respond to your trial in a way consistent with God’s Word if God is going to be glorified in the PROCESS or as a result of your TRIAL
> you can think SELFISHLY – I don’t deserve this
> or you can think: I want to GET EVEN with the person who did this to me
Point: The petition is another plea for God to provide what we in ourselves do not have!
- the next principle was equally important:
2. The Petition Doesn’t Remove Our Responsibility.
A. The petition is a safeguard against presumption and a false sense of security and self-sufficiency.
- similar to Jesus’ prayer in John 17:15 – to be kept from the evil one
B. The petition also declares our submission to His Word.
- God has made His Word available to help us, guide us through ALL of life’s temptations and trials
- REMEMBER: The King is coming and we will give an account for the stewardship of the truth He has given to us that helps us to make godly decisions!
PRAYER:
- Church to grow stronger during our upcoming MARRIAGE series (next week)
- Ladies Conference (Upcoming!)
- ABF Requests – those who’ve had children, trials, etc.
- Our country (President/Government Leaders)
- Holiness in all of our lives, our hunger & obedience for the Word, our love for God and love for people
- Church Staff, leaders, servants, all our members to GROW!!!!
