[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered on Sunday, the 16th of October, 2022, at Pilgrim Reformed Church. Our YouTube streaming channel is:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDIz4WuP8igQstkEOq1AMTg.]
Jesus is God - one of the three Persons of God, the Son of God. He came to us in the flesh; God in the flesh. He walked this earth as one of us, as a man, but He was still God. And yet He prayed to His Father God more than any other, the most times of any person as recorded for us in our Bible.
So did Jesus, the Son of God, need to pray to God more than the rest of us? Filled with God’s Holy Spirit, was there anything that Jesus could not have done on His own? I think not. So why did Jesus pray so much? Why were so many of His prayers recorded and saved to this day in our Bibles?
Well, for the same reason that some things are often repeated multiple times: so that we’ll know it is important for us to understand. All those times Jesus spent in prayer should serve as an example for us. They give us notice that this is critical behavior that we should adopt as our own and practice often.
And Jesus did pray a lot. He prayed for big things and He prayed for little things. He prayed and asked for God’s blessings when He broke the bread to feed a few or to feed thousands. He prayed over water, that it be turned into wine. As He approached the cross, He prayed, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” He prayed for His disciples; He prayed for all those who would come to believe and follow Him; He prayed for you and for me. He even specifically gave us an example of how to pray. We call it the Lord’s Prayer.
The fact that Jesus prayed often shows that He was persistent in prayer, and He encouraged us to be persistent, too. Please listen and follow along to a story Jesus told as recorded for us by the Apostle Luke in chapter 18 of his Gospel account, verses 1 through 18, and I’ll be reading this from The Living Bible version…
1 One day Jesus told His disciples a story to illustrate their need for constant prayer and to show them that they must keep praying until the answer comes.2 “There was a city judge,” He said, “a very godless man who had great contempt for everyone. 3 A widow of that city came to him frequently to appeal for justice against a man who had harmed her. 4-5 The judge ignored her for a while, but eventually she got on his nerves.“‘I fear neither God nor man,’ he said to himself, ‘but this woman bothers me. I’m going to see that she gets justice, for she is wearing me out with her constant coming!’”6 Then the Lord said, “If even an evil judge can be worn down like that, 7 don’t you think that God will surely give justice to His people who plead with Him day and night? 8 Yes! He will answer them quickly! But the question is: When I, the Son of Man, return, how many will I find who have faith and are praying?”
--Luke 18:1-8 (TLB)
Let us pray… Father God, thank You for giving us the means of communicating with You, of talking with You and expressing our needs and concerns. Through prayer, we can spend some valuable “me time” with You. Thank You, loving God, for listening for and hearing our prayers. Forgive us, please Father, when we fail to pray as often as we should, when we think we can do things under our own power and don’t come to You for help and guidance. Please help us remember how much Your own Son prayed. Help us learn from His example. And Father, please protect us from Satan and from those who do his work. Please keep us strong in our faith, of one mind and one purpose in our love, worship, and service, and healthy and safe through these trying times.
Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit within us and better understand the message You have for us this day. Give ear to our words and consider our meditations. This we pray to You, O God, in the glorious name of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Martin Luther, one of the founders of our Protestant faith, once said, “Pray as if everything depends on God, and then work as if everything depends on you.” This seems to go along with what the Apostle James said about putting our faith to work. We need to put everything to God in prayer, but then show that we’re serious about it by putting our prayer-life to work.
Pastor and theologian James Sidlow Baxter notes that, “Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons -- but they are helpless against our prayers.” So we need to be aware that while our works may prove ineffectual, God’s power, through our prayers, can do anything, and no one can stand against Him.
I love the image of Moses standing on the hill, arms outstretched to heaven in prayer as the men of Israel battled the Amalekites below. While his arms were raised, the Israelis were winning. But when his arms grew too tired to hold up, he lowered them, and the tide of battle changed, with the Amalekites winning. So his brother Aaron and another man held up Moses’ arms so he could continue praying to God and the Israelites won.
That is the power of prayer. But prayer doesn’t have to be fancy, or long. At a meeting of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Bobby Richardson, former New York Yankee second baseman, offered a prayer that is a classic in brevity and poignancy: "Dear God, Your will, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. Amen." That plea echoes Jesus’ prayer when He said to His Father God, “not My will, but Yours, be done”. In all circumstances and situations, God knows the best action to produce the best result. So we can trust Him and His will in all things.
As I said, Jesus prayed a lot and often, and His prayers can serve as examples for us. And I think that what He prayed isn’t as important as why He prayed. We should pay more attention to the purpose of His prayers rather than the words He spoke.
For one thing, not all of the instances recorded in our Bible of Jesus praying include the words He spoke. Indeed, many prayers can be lifted without ever saying a word, letting the Holy Spirit in our hearts speak for us. And in some cases, we need to take note of the duration of our Lord’s prayers - how much time He spent in prayer.
Let me give you one good example of all this. This comes earlier in Luke’s Gospel account, soon after Jesus first began His ministry on earth, from chapter 6 verses 12 and 13…
12 Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. 13 And when it was day, He called His disciples to Himself; and from them He chose twelve whom He also named apostles.
--Luke 6:12-13 (NKJV)
By this time, Jesus had many followers, many disciples, but He needed to choose just twelve from among them to be His apostles, twelve that He could send out to spread the Good News. So He went to God in prayer, seeking His counsel.
Now Jesus did not really need help picking out His apostles. He knew all along who they would be. He was God, remember? But by this act, He shows us that whenever we have a big decision to make, one that will impact not only ourselves but others as well, we need to ask God for help, for guidance in making the right choice. And while we may have a preference, we need to be sure to ask that we follow His will and not our own.
Oh, and notice that Jesus spent all night in prayer, not just a quick, “OK, God… what should I do?” We need to spend more time in prayer, not just speaking but also being still and listening for God’s reply.
Jesus may have given us the most examples for our personal prayer life to follow, but others in our Bible also emphasized the need for prayer. These include the Apostle James, the brother of Jesus, who exhorts us to pray in chapter 5 of his letter to the early church, verses 13 through 18, when he writes…
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
--James 5:13-18 (NKJV)
James says to pray in good times and bad. If we’re suffering or cheerful, pray. If we’re sick in body or spirit, pray and be healed. Pray for others, as well as for ourselves. Just pray, because “the fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much”.
And then there’s the Apostle Paul, who gives us the best reason of all to pray, in chapter 5 verses 16 through 18 of his 1st letter to the Thessalonians...
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
--1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NKJV)
Rejoicing in all things, giving thanks in everything, signing psalms and praises to God, these are all forms of prayers to our heavenly Father. Prayer doesn’t have to be fancy or formal. We don’t have to spend any time writing it down and coming up with just the right words to say. God knows what we need. He knows what’s best for us. He just wants some alone time with us. And He wants us to realize and understand what we really need, and not just what we want.
We just need to pray, to spend time with our Father, to seek His help and His guidance in all we do. For this is the will of God for us, we who are in Christ Jesus. Just pray. In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Let us pray… Almighty God, thank You for wanting to spend time with us. We are Your creation, You made us, yet You love us so much You want us to come to You and talk to You and just be with You for a while in our daily lives. Thank You, Father, for caring this much about our welfare. Father, too often we don’t take the time to stop and pray. And even when we do, we’re too focused on our own needs and wants, with less concern that Your will be done rather than our own. Forgive us, Father, when we focus our time on the wrong things. Forgive us when we seek a change in our situation rather than a change in our heart, in our character. Please, loving Father, help us not only come to You more often, but with a right attitude. Remind us that even Your Son Jesus prayed, so we need to follow His example. Help us be more obedient to Your word. And Father, please help us remain strong, faithful, and true through all that we face in this age.
Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to Your commands, and seeking Your help to do so…
Lord Jesus, You spent more time in prayer to God than any mortal man. Thank You, Lord, for showing us just how important a good prayer life is to us. Please, Lord, help us be more faithful in our prayer life. Please help us open ourselves to God, seeking only His will in all things. Forgive us when we become too self-centered in our prayers, ignoring the needs of others. And Jesus, please heal the hurts that separate and divide us one from another. Help us remain trusting and obedient no matter what we go through. Help us keep our focus on the things of heaven and the needs of others rather than on anything this life might offer. This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior. Amen.
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