Sermon: The Inward Stroke: Requests
Praying for ourselves; praying for others
1. Read Matthew 6:1-15. We live in a very time-oriented culture which has an effect on the way we communicate. To fit more tasks into our already bulging schedules we tend to interact with one another in a business-like and abbreviated way. We have, in an effort to communicate more, embraced technologies which in turn would have us get our message across in ways that are more impersonal and succinct thus adding to our breakdown in communication. For all of the new ways we are in contact with one another, relationships, as a general statement, are not any better. We turn on the T.V. and talk less. We bypass the family dinner so that we can attend all the kids sports games. We forget to say, “good morning” to the co-worker and just launch into the business of the day. We text our friends and family with brief statements and symbols without the aid of facial expressions to convey the spirit of what is said. We may spend hours on facebook but not have two extra minutes to greet someone face to face. That is our culture. Americans have the reputation overseas of being rude because we tend not to greet a person’s presence or we fail to try to express something in their own language before we hurriedly ask for directions or help. And interestingly, we tend to come before the throne of God in prayer with some of these same habits.
Dear God. Would you please do this and would you do that and I need, I need, I need. Amen.
Can anyone relate?
If you consider Matthew 6:9-15 an outline of how to pray, how would you say that God wants us to communicate with Him?
2. How does the perspective of Matthew 6:9-15 contrast with our usual way of praying? In other words, as you look over this section of Scripture what do you think God wants us to be thinking about as we approach Him in prayer?
3. What does ‘the Lord’s Prayer,’ as we call this section of Scripture, tell us about God’s heart?
4. Clearly, personal prayer is the duty and practice of all who would consider themselves followers of Christ. God desires our interaction with Him and He “sees what is done in secret.” Commentator Matthew Henry tells us, “there is not a secret sudden breathing after God, but He observes it.” Do you have a favorite place where you go to God all alone to pray? Where is that place for you and why is that place helpful for you as you seek to focus on the Lord there?
5. Matthew Henry, who lived in the 1700’s, explains “Open your case, and pour out your hearts before Him, and then leave it with Him. The God we pray to is our Father. Children do not make long speeches to their parents when they want anything. They need not say many words, that are taught by the Spirit of adoption to say that one aright, Abba Father.” In other words, a child is secure in his or her relationship with their father and says without reservation, “Daddy, Daddy” when they are in need of something. Henry concludes, “He is a Father that knows our case and knows our wants better than we do ourselves. He knows what things we have need of”. In the “Lord’s Prayer” we are instructed to ask for our “daily bread” (our daily needs). In a affluent culture, such as ours, we often time, think of many other things when we think of our “needs.” What are some of the needs for which you most often pray? How would you contrast those needs to people in third world countries? Does this give you an added perspective on what we consider “needs?”
6. Read Mark 11:12-14; 20-26. The Lord talks much of the issue of forgiveness and how our forgiving of others transgressions against us has a correlation to the way in which God forgives our daily sins. In this section of Mark, Jesus ties the promises of power in our praying to our faith and the condition of forgiveness for others in our hearts.
Why do you think that God’s relationship to us is tied to the way we interact with others?
7. Author and Pastor Ronald Dunn gives us these words of admonition if we have seemingly unanswered prayer: “If I don’t forgive, I can’t pray; if I can’t pray, I can’t express my faith; if I can’t exercise my faith, the mountain will not move. Got any mountains you can’t move? You’ve prayed, you’ve believed, you’ve fasted, you’ve rebuked the devil – you’ve done everything, yet nothing changes. Perhaps you, too, need to look under the rock of your heart and see if there is a worm of unforgiveness hiding there. Ah, there’s the culprit.”
Why, as human beings do we struggle so to forgive? What have you learned about the way that God has forgiven you to help you to remember how you must forgive others?
