The epistle is written in the first letter of St Paul to Timothy, chapter 6, beginning at the 11th verse. But you, man of God, flee from all this, and be sure righteousness, God in his faith, love, endures and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal delight which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Jesus Christ, who, while testifying before Pontius Pilate, made the good confession, I charge you to keep the command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time. You are the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal, and who lives in an unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honored and might forever. The Holy Gospel is written in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of the Cornetas and Matthew, beginning at the fifth verse.
Jesus said, and when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues on the sweet corners to be seen by others. Surely I tell you that I can receive their award in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen, then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. When you pray, do not keep babbling like pagans, or they think they will be heard for their many words.
Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. This is then how you pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
Or if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. Next week we are starting a new series of sermons called Prayers of Confusion and Confidence. Prayers of Confusion and Confidence.
We look at a number of different kinds of prayers from Old Testament scripture. Today, which is the weekend in which we have the whole parish weekend away, the river down at the school, we usually have a one-off sermon, just as they do what you like. Thank you for that. But in the coming series I decided to make a sermon prequel on prayer itself.
So before the Prayers of Confusion and Confidence today, the most important thing about prayer, the most important thing about prayer, what is the most important thing about prayer? Is it how to pray in a way that you receive what you ask for? Is it what technique you should use? Is it what words you should use?
Is it the right attitude, praying person, the right theology of prayer? The most important thing about prayer actually is the God to whom we pray. The most important thing about prayer actually is the God to whom we pray. It's easy to think about prayer the wrong way around from our sighted word.
I think a prayer in terms of how do I make it work, how do I make myself feel good, how do I grow spiritually, not bad things in themselves. But if prayer is communication, then whom I'm communicating with, as much more to say than anything about what prayer is. So the question therefore is who is the guide to whom I pray? He is hung in the Proteret and you'll see the outline also in the Lord of service.
I'm going to start looking at the two key aspects of God which report the prayer. First, of God is in heaven, to be approached with awe, second God is of hand to be approached with openness, and then show how this understanding applies in a couple of examples where we may have difficulty in prayer. I've got three of them, maybe others. So let's begin.
The first aspect of the most important thing about prayer is this, God is in heaven. God is the approach with awe. Let me start with a very unusual text on prayer. As you may know, the book of Ecclesiastes has a rather contrarian style.
So here's my verse, verse 2 of chapter 5. Do not be quick with your mouth. Do not be hastily in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth.
So let your words be few. Not common given as a prayer guide, but yet again, do not be quickly your mouth. Do not be hastily in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth.
So let your words be few. You see what it's getting at. God is God and speaking with him is no trivial matter. What you say is no trivial issue.
God is in heaven and you are on earth. So let your words be few. Guard your words. There's actually another Old Testament text that goes even further.
When I was looking at my parents talking to West Drive Methodist Church, that was our church. The church was serviced with stuff with the same words which kept the ready sun as the opening of the service. At the time I thought it was a very odd way to start a service of worship. What were the words we sung at the very beginning?
Have a cup chapter 2, verse 20. The Lord is in his holy temple. Did all the earth be silent before him? The Lord is in his holy temple.
Did all the earth be silent before him? And what would follow? Well, not silence. Words, hymns, prayers, Father readings and so on.
Think about it now, I haven't grown up since then. I see what they were getting at. Though it would have helped with the explain to my child yourself why we're singing. The Lord is in his holy temple.
The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord is in his holy temple. It's all the earth be silent before him. But what they were doing was this.
Before they did utter words, prayers, readings, songs, they stopped before the sheer holiness and reverence of God. The whole earth was silent before him before you speak. Holy fear, he may say. That's the first act of the character of God.
In the New Testament, the simple points are made. You heard it in the first reading where Timothy is told by Paul, God, quote, who is God, quote, this is one Timothy, 1615 and 16. God the blessed and only ruler, King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and lives in unapproachable light. No one has seen or can see.
He can be on a and might river. That's who we pray to. That's God. I want to emphasise this point to start with because the miracle of the gift of prayer through Jesus Christ will be lost on us if we take it as a simple take of a greater reality.
If we think I could bowl up any time, it's a great universe to have a chat. If we can make the undecuable talk about where it makes me talk about it correctly from the film. It's bad enough speaking to a close friend and not being meaning what you say or just bawling up into the boss's office unguided. Let alone doing it to God.
Therefore, no complacent to the prayer, no taking it for granted, no careless of handedness, no to asking without trusting obedience. God is in heaven. He is to be approached with all. That's the first aspect.
The second is a contrast. God is of hand to be approached with openness. God is in heaven to be approached with all. God is of hand to be approached with openness.
And for this I take the words of Hebrews chapter 4 verse 16. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence. That we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. The readers, the leaders they are in trouble they are told to approach God's grace with confidence.
That's the word confidence in the ritual language has a sense of being open plainly directly. Some translations have with boldness. With boldness. That's the approach to the throne of God's grace.
With boldness. Bear face leave it. It could be another translation. Up front.
That's what the word means. They're full of that. That's the approach God's throne of grace. Up front.
So that we may find mercy. We may see mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Why? How could that possibly be given my first point by the way?
How could that be? I'd then say upfront. Boldness. It's the context of Hebrews 4, 14, and 16.
Where the word in the context he says this. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who was ascended into heaven, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith he professed. Before we do not have a high priest who was unable to empathize with our weaknesses, one who has been tempted in every way that we have just as we are, he did not sin. Therefore let us approach the throne of God's grace with confidence.
But we may receive mercy and find grace and time of need. The boldness is not the boldness of our boldness because God himself has provided a representative of us, one of us, a great high priest who represents us, also the divine Son of God, who has lived in our weaknesses and yet triumphed and now is ascended into heaven for us. That's the basis of the remarkable boldness, confidence, openness. We are called to approach the divine throne.
Another way you can put this as what Paul writes in his letter to the Romans chapter 834, just in passage, makes this remark, Jesus Christ who died, more than that, who was raised from to life, is at the right hand of God and also into seating for us, is at the right hand of God and also into seating for us. As you pray, Jesus is praying at the right hand which is the place of sharing of us of sovereignty. You can't get closer and more exalted than that. In and through him we pray, we meet God as our Father.
So that's the second aspect of whom we pray, that in Christ God is at hand. He is to be approached with openness. The 16th century German Reformer Martin Luther expressed this truth beautifully when he wrote, and I quote, this is truly to behold God in faith, that you should look upon his fatherly, friendly heart, in which there is no anger or undressiness. Outside of Christ you see nothing but wrath and terror, but in Christ you see nothing but grace, kindness, and goodwill.
Now why, of course, anyone can pray, and God in His mercy will often hear those who do not acknowledge Him, He is generous, but the confidence of prayer, the openness comes, only through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now those are the two profound aspects of the most important thing about prayer, the God in which we pray. He alone is immortal and dwells in unapproachable light, to no one has single-can see. God is in heaven, He is to be approached with the word, and we can approach God's grace with boldness in Christ, God's at hand, He is to approach with openness.
Now the most important thing, this is a rainwater, this is my main point, both extremes at once, both extremes at once, or boldness. That's really important. The reason is important, the danger is we have a little bit of each, a slightly holy God who we think we can make talk to. That's a disaster in prayer.
It's not a little bit of this little bit of that, that's useless. It's not a slightly awesome thought, we think we can approach. No, the most important thing about prayer is both extremes at once. God in heaven, we approach with all, God's at hand, to be approached with confidence.
With that in mind, let me read, look at some examples of how this might help us. Placing some obstacles in prayer, I've got three, but you may think of others. One is feeling unworthy to pray. You feel embarrassed about praying, you feel, you haven't got to write to pray?
I've been healed by a book I read, I went 30 years ago now, called Don't Just Stand There, Pray, I think it was called, and this man recounts an imaginary story, but I think it's coming to pray after a bad day of Christian ministry. I quote him, at midnight I came to my prayer time feeling unworthy. The first words out of my mouth were, I have no right to ask for you for anything tonight. And I proceeded to apologise for being too busy to pray, too busy to be the Bible or witness.
Too busy to do anything spiritual. I was praying like I went. He goes on, suddenly it seemed as if the Lord said, suppose you had done a lot spiritual today, suppose you prayed for four hours, read the Bible on your knees for four hours, let ten people to Christ, would you feel more confident praying than you do now? Yes, I would.
Then you are praying in your own name. You think I hear because of your holiness. You think I'm more inclined to listen to you, if you've done a lot of good works, you're approaching your name. If you pray for eight hours a day and read the Bible on your knees for eight hours and they're fifty people to Christ, you have no more right to pray than you do now.
Your thoughts are concludes. I look down at the floor of his throne room and saw it was sprinkled, not with the sweat of my good works, but with the blood of your sacrifice. And I think it's a vivid illustration by make the point, quite practical. You've approached the throne of grace with boldness because of what God has done.
Yes, he is in heaven, probably the Lord, is right there back at the same time. He is the one through Christ boldness. The second prayer is another obstacle often is, God, it's too big to care about my details. When you get a sense of the size of just the universe or start, that's on the world, and you think, well, what's my concern?
Now this is a different problem to the other one, which I'm not going to deal with, but it's a problem where you think God is only concerned about me, is that the narcissist's prayer? This is the other one, God is just too big. It's a great temptation when we start thinking about the immensity of God, or the size of his creation. To think of God is just like us, only bigger.
God is not just like us, only bigger. It's totally different. He's totally different. So therefore you think, oh, he must be busy.
He must be busy. Sometimes we put a do not disturb side on our office, we want to get some work done at last. Maybe God should say, do not disturb dignity while running universe. You might say, I feel God should be care about me.
He's got the universe to worry about. There's a billion on earth, a staff of staff, who's a blood million then? And sometimes it is easy to feel that way in a world that is heartless. Now this is an era.
This is like a minish to be your God. He is not like us, only bigger. Interesting, the late great physicist Stephen Hawking, for all his intelligence, thought like this, when he stressed the view and I quote, this way he said, we are such insignificant creatures on a minor planet among more than 100,000 million galaxies. So it's difficult to believe in a God that would care about us or notice our existence.
He thought he got that one. But no, God is not too big to care. If you think God's too big to care, your God is too small. Jesus put it in a rather striking way in which words record in Matthew 10, 29, 31, he's got that right.
Jesus tells you the cycles that you might almost call the obsessive concern of God with detail. The obsessive concern of God with detail. He says this, I quote, are not too sparrows sold for a penny, yet not one of them forced to grow out of your father's care. And even the very hairs on your head are numbered.
So don't be afraid. You're worth more than minish burrows. Sparrow was the cheapest thing in the market. If God knows one of those, it's forced to grow out.
That's how big God is. He takes the trouble as it were to know. It matters. Even what must be in the most irrelevant detail, the number of hairs on your head.
I was going to say for some of us, that's easier for God to count than others, but I'll let that pass. It's not that God is completely obsessed with details. It just he has perspective. It's just that he knows you're valuable.
God is not too big to care. Yes, God is in heaven to be appropriate or. But he's of hand to be appropriate to listen. So that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, so that's worrying about feeling unworthy or worrying about God is too big to sneak it off.
I thought it was his problem. And it is the puzzle of theology. I guess, you know, God is great. You know he knows all your needs and he has his plans.
No doubt. You think, well, you really have, he really knows, what is the point of prayer. What's the point of prayer, God already knows? Well, that's correct.
God does know. Prayer is not informing him in his ignorance. You heard that in Jesus, the words in Matthew 6, you know, God already, when you pray do like your bad like pagans, for they think they could be heard for their many words. It cannot be like them for your father knows, what you need before you ask him.
Your father knows what you need before you ask him. Then what's the point he wants? The point is this, God commands the prayers of his people. God commands the prayers of his people.
He calls us in the context of a relationship of giving and receiving and repeating to engage with him, to ask that he may give, to ask that he may give. Here are some two of many commands that scripture, one from the Old Testament, Psalm 50-15, call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and you will glorify me. There you are simple as that. It's God's command to speak.
Call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you and you will glorify me. And from the New Testament, where of course Paul's words, Philippians, chapter 4, verse 6, do not worry about anything but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made now to God. Couldn't be clear.
We are commanded by God that God will be approached with all and with openness, the call upon him. Sure, God gives us a great deal without asking. Think about that, of course he does, but he does ask us to ask him so that he may respond and so that a relationship of dependence, trust and thanksgiving can be developed, so that there can be a genuine relationship and not simply some automatic provision. God is in heaven, we are proked with all.
He's also got a hand to be approached with openness. Therefore my dear beloved friends, what is the most important thing about prayer? God himself. God himself.
In heaven, proked with all at hand, we're proked with openness. Both extremes, both extremes at once. Let's pray. Mighty and everlasting God, you're always more ready to hear than we pray and to give more than either we desire or deserve.
Hore down upon us the abundance of your mercy, for giving us those things of which our conscience is afraid and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.