Gospel Prism

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
Romans 8:15-16

Introduction

Last week, we learned that our prayers are always answered on the basis of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and not because we are good enough, because of our forms and methods in prayer, etc. God hears us because we are adopted as sons and daughters into His family. So then the question that we want to focus on this week is, “How should our adoption as sons affect the way we pray?”

How should our adoption as sons affect the way we pray?

First, we realize that our prayers are effective on the basis of our sonship, not on its form, its fervency, its longevity, and its methods. This second statement would contradict so much of what is taught in the Christian church. We are taught from an early age that the longer we pray, the methods we use when we pray, the language we use when we pray, the time of day we pray, the more God will hear us. I do believe that God does use all of these to answer our prayers, BUT God never uses any of these as the basis of His acceptance of our prayers. All of these would be absolutely worthless and in fact would be a cacophonous shrill sound to God if they were not ultimately dependent on the work of His Son.

For example, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees and the Gentiles for their prayers in Matthew 6:5, 7: “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For 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 received their reward… And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases [keep on babbling] as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” Jesus is not condemning public prayer, or long prayer, or repetitious prayer. But what makes prayer worthy is never the words themselves, but the heart and motivation behind those words. In fact, according to Romans 8:26, there are prayers without words, but mere groaning that God fully understands. God tells Jeremiah that because Israel’s worship and prayers are completely selfish, “Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them.” (Jeremiah 14:12) And James warns the church: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” (James 4:3) Finally, contrast Elijah and the Baal prophets. The Baal prophets, screamed, cut themselves, and prayed at great lengths. Elijah said two sentences and God heard His prayer. God is a God who sees our hearts in prayer and is not bamboozled by the words or forms of our prayers.

So here are some implications regarding this statement. There is no form of prayer in itself that makes God listen to Him more. Praying in the early morning is a wonderful thing because our hearts want to begin each day, early in the morning, with a fresh reminder of His grace. However, the act of early morning prayer in itself has no magical power to make prayer more effective. There are many prayers that are prayed at the break of dawn that God would have no desire to hear, especially from a heart that believes the actual act of praying in such a way DESERVES God’s grace. If you decide to wake up early in the morning, I hope it is because you really want to do this as an act of your desire for God and not as an act of your acceptance before God. Moreover, praying lengthy, wordy, prayers has no intrinsic value to them. As we saw from Jesus’ words, these prayers can be nothing but empty babble. Again, God doesn’t even need words when we pray. We can pray with our hearts in silence. The mute person or uneducated person can certainly pray just as powerfully as the eloquent person. No, what God looks at is the heart.

Also, God is not looking for correct methodology when praying. How precious are the words of a small child who has no understanding of method but simply speaks to God? David writes: “Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes” (Psalm 8:2). Such words are simple words, but genuine words of praise that flow from one’s hearts.

Second, we pray without ceasing because as sons and daughters, we love to speak to our heavenly Father. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:17: “Pray without ceasing.” When you really stop to think about this, you begin to see a perspective on prayer that you might never have realized before. This statement by Paul just reiterates what I had just said, which is that genuine prayer is not dependent on posture, place, spoken word, time of day. For if God expects us to pray without ceasing, and we needed to be kneeling when praying, or praying in the morning, or praying with our eyes closed, or screaming and yelling when we pray, or weeping when we pray, then we would not be able to eat, sleep, work, etc. So this verse makes it pretty clear that prayer is much much more than these things.

What we do know about unceasing prayer is that it is possible to do so. Our God would not give us a command to do something that was impossible to fulfill. But obviously, what needs to change for this to be possible is that our understanding of what prayer is must change for this command to even be remotely possible. Prayer then, cannot be tied to a physical activity such as kneeling or standing, or verbalization (which would be impossible during sleep), or place (we’re not always in a church), or time of day (only morning prayer would make unceasing prayer impossible).

Also, these prayers are prayers that press on and persevere regardless of how hopeless things seem to be. And remember, the reason we pray in such a way is because we are God’s children. Think of our own children. My son Jack will ask me for something so many times that eventually I really do have to give in. It’s easy to focus on Jack and his persistence and think of how noble it is. But the only reason I will respond ultimately is because he is my son. If someone else were to ask me for something continuously, it would be easy to turn away from him. But how could a father ultimately turn away his son if she should ask continuously, unless I knew that by giving in, I would harm him rather than help him. So as God’s children, we must never give up in asking him in prayer, and trust that His answer shall always be for our best. This is one way we pray without ceasing.

Also, unceasing prayer does not displace your regular times of prayer. Remember, if we have regular times of prayer, and we should, it is in response to how gracious God has been with us already. A man in love with his wife will long to communicate with her continuously. When I first come home from my day, I go to the kitchen area and I spend the first 30 minutes at home speaking to Shua. I don’t do this because she ordered me to. I don’t do it because I have to prove to the men in this church that Godly husbands must do this. I don’t do it because I need to model marital love to my kids. Honestly, I do it because I love my wife and there really isn’t anyone else I love spending more time with in talking to then Shua. This must be what compels us to spend regular time with God and to spend unceasing time with God, a love for Him and an amazement as to what He has done for us. We cannot give up praying in the morning to God because we think our unceasing prayer will make up for it by thinking prayers throughout the day. To think such a way undermines the very reality that prayer must be from our hearts. As James reminds us in James 4:3: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” Wrong motives to spend on our selfish gain has no love for God and in the end is self-defeating since God always promises that He will give us our best.

Unceasing prayer is a prayerful heart, what Paul calls setting our minds on the things above and not on earthly things (Col 3:2). It is a heart that thinks of God, thinks of how gracious God has been to him or her, and actually wants to think of God throughout the day. Spurgeon said it well when he said these words about unceasing prayer: “When prayer is a mechanical act, and there is no soul in it, it is a slavery and a weariness; but when it is really living prayer, and when the man prays because he is a Christian and cannot help praying, when he prays along the street, prays in his business, prays in the house, prays in the field, when his whole soul is full of prayer, then he cannot have too much of it. He will not be backward in prayer who meets Jesus in it, but he who knows not the Well-beloved will count it a drudgery.” Unceasing prayer really is this way. It is self-fulfilling. The more you are actively engaged in wanting to speak with the Lord, the more you will find the joy in prayer. The less you are looking to communicate with your heavenly Father, the more you will find any prayer to be drudgery.

Third, we pray all kinds, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, loud, quiet, still, wordless, long, short, arrow, weeping, rejoicing, sorrowful, dancing, kneeling, standing, prostrate, lifted hands, sitting still. Paul tells us in Eph 6:18 that we can pray “at all times in the Spirit, with all [kinds of] prayer and supplication.” Since prayers are accepted on the basis of our adoption as children of God, we should feel the freedom to pray to God in many different ways. Some have used the acrostic ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) to pray to God. That’s fine and it can be helpful. But it is only one way to pray. Some prayers might simply adore God. Some might be heavy prayers of sorrow over sin in confession. We can pray in such ways because we’re His children. When we look at the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray, that is, in what ways they can pray with their hearts. But He doesn’t say that every prayer needs to have every component of the Lord’s Prayer to be valid. Perhaps one of the most important phrases of Jesus’ prayer is the first one, “Our Father.” These are precious words. They are the very words that remind us that Jesus, through His finished work, gives us the freedom to call God Father. It makes our prayer valid.

If I may also say a few words about prayer and its forms. Intention is important when it comes to prayer, especially when it comes to the use of our words. It is far too easy to get into a ‘prayer mode’ that can often lead to the babbling that Jesus criticized. For example, when we confuse the Triune God by saying in our prayers, “Father Lord” or “Father Jesus” or “Father Lord Jesus,” what has happened is that we have picked up Christian words and so readily strung them together without realizing what we’re saying. We can get into habits of words, saying “Father God” or “Lord” throughout our prayers so much that the name of God loses its significance, and then He loses significance. Sometimes, we need to remember that we are talking to a God whom we love and desire to speak to, not because we have to, but because we love to. And so, like talking to a good friend or a spouse, we are intentional with our words, and we can speak simply. We need to worship God in our prayers, but we can speak freely to Him.

Also, I mentioned the lifting of hands because so often in the Bible, worshippers are depicted as ones who lift their hands in prayer and worship. Nehemiah records: “And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.” (Neh 8:6). And Lam 3:41-42 shows even during prayers of confession, Jeremiah writes: “Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven: 42 “We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.” The lifting of hands can mean nothing if one’s heart has no love for God. But just like any of our kids will come to us with arms spread open for us to hold him, so too our lifting of our hands is a visible expression of our hunger and desire for God to meet us and lead us and direct our lives. I said earlier that God never accepts us on the basis of the forms and words of our worship. But when these forms and words are an expression of our adoption as sons and daughters through the work of His Son, these are so pleasing to God. He loves them and he listens to every prayer and answers them.

Fourth, we speak prayers that cast our cares upon a God who cares for us as a Father to a child. Peter writes that we can cast “all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7). What is it you are anxious about right now? Will I ever find the right person to marry? Will I be able to afford the life I want to live? Will my kids turn out alright? Will my health be ok? Will I be able to care for my aging parents? The anxieties are endless. And with each worry and anxious thought come a lack of joy, a lack of desire for God, and a lack of faith in Him. Worry is our way of trying to be God over our lives. It’s the belief that God cannot and will not intervene and act graciously for our sake and therefore we must figure out a way out of the situations that God has obviously failed to provide for us.

But you see, as a child of God, you are to cast ALL of your anxieties upon Him. Why should you do this? Because He cares for you! Do you believe this? Jesus has this to say about worry: “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’” (Luke 5:27-31) You see, nothing is too small or too great for God not to care for you. If God cares for birds and lilies, how much more will He care for you? We can cast ALL upon Him.

But sadly, how often we think we can’t go to God with our cares. This text teaches that we can pray to God about small and great things. We can pray for our parents’ salvation. But can we pray for a parking spot? Of course we can. My children ask me some very difficult and great questions. But they also ask me things that seem of little import. They ask me to tie their shoelaces. They ask me if I can get them milk. They ask me what type of bird is in our backyard. I don’t respond to them, “Now that’s a stupid thing to ask for. I’m not responding.” No, I respond to all of those needs and questions because I love them. Well, why should we think that God only wants to hear prayers about illnesses and salvation and everything else is nothing but petty favors? Sure, I might not get the parking spot because maybe there is something to my benefit in me walking further away. But I can tell you that there have been times I have really needed a spot and when I have prayed, it has been there. A coincidence? Well if you believe 1 Peter 5:7, it might just be an act of care by a loving and always gracious Father. We have the blessedness to cast ALL cares upon Him because He really does care for us. Listen to the promises of Scripture for you as sons and daughters of a gracious Father:

Heb 13:5: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
John 14:1: “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”
Isaiah 54:10: “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”
Isaiah 43:2: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”
John 10:28: “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”

God’s Word is so clear that we can cast our prayers on Him as His children because He cares so deeply for us.

Fifth, we believe that our prayers are always answered because we are sons. Romans 8:14-17 and Galatians 4:4-7 teaches us that our prayers are always answered. Because the Holy Spirit is the guarantor of our prayers and bears witness with our spirit when we pray, there is absolutely no way that our prayers go unanswered as God’s children. Again, when our kids ask us for something, how often do we simply leave them standing there without an answer? We would call this a mean parent. Well, why should we assume God does this to us? But I know if Jack asks me if he can stick a knife into the outlet, no matter how many times he asks me that question, I will always say, “No.” And though he might not understand the answer, he has to trust that I truly want not what is good for him, but rather, what is best for him. But of course, sometimes I don’t always know what is best. But God certainly knows what is best for us as his children. We have to continually have faith that God the Father who loves to answer our prayers, is perfectly wise in ways we can never be, and trust that His best is for our ultimate joy. J. I. Packer observes however, that often our prayers come without this faith. He writes:

We are regularly less wise, more self-centered, even more pig-headed, and so less mature in our praying than we are aware, and again and again the divine answers are so crafted as to us in these respects, where we have not realize our need for help, no less than in respect of the conscious need that prompted our petition in the first place. (J. I. Packer, Praying, 57)

For example, Paul’s prayer for the removal of some sort of physical ‘thorn in the flesh’ in 2 Cor 12:7-9 was ANSWERED not by the removal of that thorn, but what Paul understood in light of having that thorn. He learned about God’s sufficient grace in suffering in a way he could never understood should he had that thorn removed. One poet put Paul’s realization this way:(Ibid., 58-59)

He asked for strength that he might achieve;
He was made weak that he might obey.
He asked for health that he might do greater things;
He was given infirmity that he might do better things.
He asked for riches that he might be happy;
He was given poverty that he might be wise.
He asked for power that he might have the praise of men;
He was given weakness that he might feel the need of God.
He asked for all things that he might enjoy life;
He was give life that he might enjoy all things.
He has received nothing that he asked for, but all that he hoped for.
His prayer is answered.

God answers all of our prayers as a loving Father always answers his sons and daughters. But like a loving Father should, He answers for their best, not for what they always want. And there is no father on earth who can understand our best for our ultimate joy better than the God who knows all. God is perfectly loving and has demonstrated such love by sending His Son for us.

Finally, we believe our prayers are heard because Jesus bore the punishment of our sins and even felt this weight even in His own prayers. I like the way the KJV translates 1 John 3:1: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” We really do need to stop and behold the work of Christ, much like people stop to look at a lunar eclipse or a shooting star. You must simply stop, gaze, and be amazed by the wondrous cross. And this is what John tells us to do. Behold the manner of love our Father has shown us. We didn’t deserve any love at all. We were once God’s enemies according to Romans 5:10, and yet, we are adopted as sons. And as sons and daughters, we are guaranteed to be heard in our prayers by the Creator of heaven and earth. I can’t say it any better than Graeme Goldsworthy as to why God listens and answers our prayers: “To pray ‘Abba, Father’ from the heart is to stand consciously in our justification and to express with confidence our union with Christ who motivates and patters in our prayer, and who justifies our inadequate prayer so that we can say, as he did, ‘Father, I know that you always hear me.’” (Graeme Goldsworthy, Prayer and the Knowledge of God, 51)

If there is one place that gives us the grand picture of Jesus’ prayers for us so that our prayers to the Father will now be accepted, it is Jesus’ prayers in the garden of Gethsemane in Luke 22:39-46. When all three of his closest disciples were fast asleep, Jesus continued to pray to His Father with an anguish of soul that no person in the world would ever face nor understand. Imagine every sin of thought, action, and omission you commit, multiply that by every Christian who has ever lived, and that was what Jesus bore on that night alone. His burden was so intense that blood began to flow from his sweat. Jesus knew everything that was to happen. He knew that His friends, whom he had invested everything that He had, would abandon Him. He knew that his hands and feet would be pierced through. He knew that he would be mocked mercilessly and tortured horribly. And the means He would use to deal with every temptation to run away from this path was prayer. Luke records in verse 44: “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” The more agony he felt, the more He prayed to His Father and in the praying, He felt comforted even though the circumstances remained the same.

Why would our great God do all of this? So we can quiver in fear when we pray? So our prayers will be accepted when we’re good enough? So that our measly prayers will somehow merit God’s favor if we pray long, or cry, or in the wee hours of the morning, or fast and pray? How small all of these ‘sacrifices’ are compared to the grand, glorious grace of an agonizing Lord who prayed sweats of blood so that He could bear the weight of sinners, and so that sinners can be called God’s children and can cry out to him Abba Father! Isaac Watts had it so right when in the hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” he writes in the last verse:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Pray because of love so amazing leads you to weep when you pray. It leads you to grieve over your sin. It leads you to rise early in the morning when your heart is so cold to God, and yet you rise, because you remember how love is so amazing and so divine. Such love leads you to fast and pray because you want to always remember God’s rich grace for you. Never believe the lie that your prayers and your forms and methods will give you better access to God’s answers. No! Pray as a child of God whose Father loves to answer your prayers because His Son agonized over you, bore your every sin on his back, suffered died, and rose again, so that your prayers are as if Jesus Himself was praying to the Father. Behold what manner of love the Father has given to you that you should be called a son of God, and that you should be able to pray as sons of God, and that God would love to answer your prayers because of His beloved only begotten Son. Let this be the reason that demands your soul, your life, your all.