advice from St Paul on prayer

gun CrossFit's poll and prayer the whole time I mean we just keep on going so here we go alright welcome across the fence thanks for tuning in I'm your host pastor Brad wolf another pastor Hope Lutheran Church in Aurora Colorado and host of cross defense that might be slightly redundant but you know you got to say that sort of thing when you're on the radio today thanks for joining me we what do we do every week on cross defenses we sit here and talk about theology open up the scriptures because I'm convinced more and more I mean my conviction on this continues to grow that that one of the ways that the devil assaults us is by making us become bored with God's Word board with the ology bored with this and we get distracted and interested in all this other sort of stuff so we want to open up the scriptures and we want to see the beauty there the wisdom the comfort that the Lord has for us we want to hear the voice of Jesus which is the best thing to hear that he loves us and he has mercy on us to that end today we are going to think about we're gonna think about prayer and particularly we're gonna think about st. Paul's wisdom and instruction that he has for us regarding prayer I had the privilege of putting together a little essay on Paul and the pastors work of prayer for doxology doxology us as a group I'm involved with I'm one of the fellows for the Collegium of doxology and it's a group that's that is concerned with pastoral care both pastoral care for pastors and and pastors increasing in their capacity to give pastoral care from the scriptures and so every year we they ask for an essay or an article so I got to I got to dig into the scriptures on what st. Paul says about prayer in fact this last week I got to go to Michigan to talk about this with the people gathered up there for a theological conference and the more I think about it and the more I talk about it the more I consider it the more this topic keeps opening up so I hope you'll I hope you'll join me for the next hour as we as we consider these things and let's start with start maybe thinking about this you know st. Paul wrote 13 books in the New Testament so the majority of books in the New Testament are pinned by the Apostle Paul and a lot of the other books are about him or connected to him so for exam perhaps the second half of the whole book of Acts it tells us that Paul's conversion and his first couple of missionary journeys his first three missionary journeys and then yeah I suppose the fourth if you consider his trip to to Rome there and the book of Luke is also Luke was a traveling companion of st. Paul and probably when Luke went with Paul to Ephesus he met Mary and did started the research on the Gospel of Luke so there's a lot of connections to the New Testament to Paul so now just think about this statistic in Paul's 13 letters 18 times he talks about his own prayers I mean it's more than one a book he mentions how he prays more than probably he mentions any other thing that he talks about himself and the words that he uses to talk about how often he prays are these expansive adjectives so Paul will say just for example he'll say to the Romans first I pray for all of you without ceasing and always in fact when Paul describes his prayer that word always comes up over and over again he says I always pray for you 1st Corinthians 1 for always in every prayer Philippians 1 3 always for you all first Thessalonians is one without ceasing day and night always second Thessalonians 1 without ceasing always full of Philemon verse 4 chapter 1 verse 4 so that Paul is always praying and then he has these other things well I remember you always without ceasing day and night I pray without ceasing I remember you in my prayers 2nd Timothy 1 and so forth it seems to me like Paul is always praying now that's an amazing thing to start with because at least in my own imagination when I think of st. Paul I think of all these incredible journeys that he's on I mean he's a Saint Paul is a man of action Paul Paul is he's going this way he's going that way he has people coming and going he's in he's he's fighting he's being stoned he's leaving the cities performing miracles he's going to this place and starting a church going to that place and starting a seminary he's traveling all around he's sort of I mean he's he's a Ming pol is a doer he wants he wants to make things happen and wherever Paul is things are happening now for whatever reason in my own imagination and this is a place to start when we think about Paul and prayer is that I think that there's a difference between praying and doing and that simply is not the case I mean if you were to just ask Paul Paul what is your work Paul what is it that you would that you do I think from these texts Paul would say my work is the work of prayer chiefly I pray and I preach but mostly I pray and it's the prayers of Paul that he that accomplished these things that do these works now now I you know this is we just got to let this sink in because there's so many things that assault our own prayers they assault our own tendency to pray they assault the the work of our own prayers that and one of them is that you have to do you have to do I've got too many things to do I don't have time to pray it's it's like there's this contract whatever it is in our imagination there's this contrast between action and prayer and and Paul it just obliterates that distinction no to pray is to work I mean we when we pray things are accomplished when we look at the scriptures for example and we notice that almost everything that the Lord does is in fact in response to a prayer then we realize how how much prayer does in fact the chief work that Paul is doing is preaching and Paul knows this Paul knows that for anybody to hear God's Word and to believe God's Word to trust in the promises of the gospel that for that to happen God has to directly intervene to give the gift of faith Paul knows for example this and this is an important text first Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14 who says the mind of the flesh does not receive the things of the Spirit of God nor can it because they are spiritually discerned so Paul knows this fundamental truth about our fallen humanity and that is that we cannot by our own reason or strength believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or come to him that the Holy Spirit has to call us through the gospel so that faith a trust in the Lord's word is not something that we can do on our own or with our own strength it's something that the Lord has to do in us through his word now to come back to Paul that way that means that Paul knows that he can go and preach the gospel into these blue in the face he can yeah he could send spend hours unfolding the scriptures he could spend days weeks months teaching someone the content of the scriptures but they cannot apart from the work of God believe that word and trust in it so that the chief thing that has to happen for any of Paul's work to bear any fruit at all must be that God would work now don't don't misunderstand God works through the scriptures it's not apart from the scriptures are underneath the scriptures or somehow ending around the scriptures God works through the scriptures but God works to give us faith and otherwise we don't have it God works to give us repentance otherwise we don't have it God works to open our ears so that we can hear his word he works to open our hearts so that we can receive and trust in his word and if God doesn't work then nothing happens so that Paul knows that if anybody believes at all if anybody believes in the scripture if anybody believes his preaching if anybody comes to church if anybody opens the Bible and and reads it and believes what the words there say if anybody in all of the world does that it's because God has worked the miracle of faith in their hearts so that Paul must begin with prayer because the chief work of the preacher is that is to end in faith and it must be that God is doing it so if Paul's gonna go to a place to Athens at a corinth or daesil and i-car for lip buy or wherever Caesarea Antioch in and if the whole if God is if there's gonna be a church there it's gonna be because God is gonna be there and God is gonna work so that God is the God is the one who's the chief worker the chief doer the chief actor which means that Paul's chief work is a work of prayer I'm a rock in a doctor clinic a Lutheran theologian who lives and works in Australia he's I think retired from the seminary down there he's done a lot of stuff he's written biblical commentaries on Leviticus and and Hebrews the Hebrews one I think is coming out here pretty soon he's written books he's lectured all over the world he's helped start churches he supported missionaries and and pastors and churches and seminarians he's just he's done a ton of stuff and I remember he told me once he says the older I get the more I realized that the work that I did really in my whole life was the work of prayer Nepal knows that so that so that the work begins with prayer it's not work or pray it's pray and work or it's in fact the work of prayer doctor clinic pointed out to me and I think this is really quite fantastic that that every single good work that we do aside from the work of prayer so everything we set our mind to do the devil can come in and worm his way in there and distort it and affect in one way or another I get preaching sermon and the people can can hear something totally different I could host a radio show and the devil comes in and now you get distracted or something gets confused or I don't say something as well as I could have an and that work gets messed up and it ends up doing damage instead of doing good I can go in and love my kids and my wife the best way I think I can but I'm a sinner and it's always gonna be messed up it's always gonna be tainted with sin however it goes and so the devil always has occasion to take our good works and use them against us and use them against other people that the exception to that the one time when our works in fact our truly good works is when we do the work of prayer because the Lord hears our prayers and he filters out any nonsense he perfects our prayers Jesus carries our prayers to God the Father and God answers our prayers according to his good pleasure so that those end up being the perfect works or to say it this way the purified works that we do so the first thing we want to consider when we think about Paul and prayer is that we should pray we should always pray we should hand ourselves over to pray prayer Paul says pray constantly now it doesn't mean that we sit in our rooms on our hands or on our knees and we pray and we never go and you know go to the grocery store vacuum the floor or go to work etc that doesn't that's not what it means but Paul probably what Paul means is he had regular times for prayer in the morning and in the evening and the pastor stops to pray at noon so this work is after all so that we have this regular pattern of Prayer a sort of a discipline of Prayer so that prayer is part of a part of our day and not only that but one of the things that and maybe we can talk about this a second the second thing that I've picked up from st. Paul is that he his prayers are it's not just that he prayed all the time and he prayed a lot but that he he prayed mmm he had a wisdom about what he prayed for he had expanded prayers he had theologically loaded prayers in fact some of the prayers of st. Paul will you read him like I don't there's so much that he's praying for it's even hard to get our heads around I'll give you a couple of examples later on but to start with and to start simply one of the things that Paul starts with always is Thanksgiving now this is an amazing sort of thing one of the reasons why we have so many notes from Paul's prayers is because almost every single one of his letters he begins by giving thanks here let me just give you a couple of examples Paul writes to the Romans Romans one chapter chapter one verse eight first I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is being reported all over the world or first Corinthians one I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus for in him you have been enriched in every way in all your speaking and all your knowledge because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you or Ephesians 1 verse 15 for this reason ever since I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints I have not stopped giving thanks for you remembering you in my prayers you could see 2nd Corinthians 9:15 Zwan Colossians 1 1st Thessalonians 1 2 and 3 2nd Thessalonians 3 first Timothy 1 second Timothy 1 Philemon for if you're if you're listening and driving along and like whoa slow down buddy yeah that's up you can download the podcast and check these things out in fact if you want to visit Wolfe Mueller dot Co I'll put some of these links up there as well I'll put Paul in prayer and you can find it and track some of these down but here's the point Paul began with Thanksgiving when he says to the Romans first I give thanks to God for all of you I don't think what Paul means is first thing on my list of to do things to write in this letters I'm gonna first give thanks and then I'm gonna talk about sin and then third I'm gonna talk about Christ and I think that Paul would Paul says first thanks that there's a primacy to Thanksgiving there's a chronological and even a sort of a priority a priority given to thanks so that it's just to think about this very very practically I want if you guys could try and experiment with me I want to try this as well that when you wake up in the morning that you think what Paul said there is first thanks so that the first thing that you do is give thanks I try this I've got a little sign on my that's right above my desk at home so when I go down to to read a page of the Bible in the morning and get a couple of things done I see that and it says first thanks and I have to stop and and give thanks now that there's there's a lot of things that happen in that in that activity in that giving of thanks I I'd love to hear if you experiment with us if you just you just write yourself put on a note card first thanks and put it where you wake up and where you do your devotions or put it in the mirror and and to practice this of giving thanks to God the first thing because it is it's a transformational kind of idea it's very very practical but but but but there's a couple of things that happens Thanksgiving in a way sort of it reorients our minds in our hearts here's how it works for me when I normally wake up in the morning the thing that's going through my mind is all of the undone things that are for me to do that day again I don't know if it's for you I did an experiment one I mean a couple of years ago and I asked my Bible class I said when you go to bed at night are you thinking about the things that you have to do tomorrow are you thinking about back on the day is your imagination oriented towards the future or is it oriented towards the past and most I think it was like two-thirds of the people were thinking about the next day one-third were thinking back over the day before some people were they said we're thinking about both and I think one person said I don't think about anything I go to sleep what's wrong with you but this is an amazing sort of thing is at least for me I'm oriented towards what's gonna happen next towards the things that are undone towards the things that I have to do the future undone my things but Thanksgiving reverses all of those I can't give thanks for the future nothing's there in the future there's nothing to give thanks for I mean it could be that Jesus could come back right now and there wouldn't even be a future so Thanksgiving requires me to look at the past towards the things that that that are back there and Thanksgiving requires me to look not at the things that are undone but at the things that are already accomplished and Thanksgiving requires me to to look not at that what I've done but what God has done when Paul starts out as letters and says I give thanks to God for you what Paul's he's not coming at the church with this agenda of here's all the things that are wrong that I'm here to fix he says no look God has already been it he's done all of these things that he's been at work in your mitts and I'm recognizing it I'm acknowledging it as gifts from God and I'm giving thanks for it it's a it's a totally transformative way to think Thanksgiving requires to the this turning away from the undone things of the future to recognizing the done things of the past and that simple act is really quite wonderful but there's more to it I I and I think this is important there's a difference between giving thanks and being grateful I want to talk about that but I just looked at the clock and I said oh man I'm thankful that we are not done with the show yet then there's time to come but we we are gonna have to go to the break so let's go to the break and we'll come back right after this and we'll talk more about Thanksgiving you're listening to cross the fence stay tuned we'll be right back I'm your host Pastor Brian we'll be there but enough of that you know that because we're talking about things we got to keep going talking about Paul and prayer because we're just kids there's so much we're just getting started so we're talking about Thanksgiving how how giving thanks totally changes our minds and our hearts instead of thinking about the undone things for me today I'm thinking about the done things of God yesterday and that's better because well because there's so much of it there's so many things that the Lord has done that he's that he's given us Christ and the open tomb and the and the forgiveness of all of our sins and he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us how will he not also together with him give us all things so that we start to recognize the goodness of God and all of these gifts and it's it's just good it's better to think about those things I mean it's kind of depressing to think about all the undone things but to think about all the done things that is great and it doesn't stand in the way of doing things it actually leads to it but there's a way that prayer is an anti worry that Thanksgiving specifically is an anti worry Paul talks about this in Philippians he says be anxious for nothing but in everything through prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving make your requests known to God and the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ so that there's this battle in our heart between worry and thanks and when we thank God for things it starts to push out worry now see I don't know how it works and I don't know how that happens what sort of spiritual dynamic is happening in the heart to make that - that that is accomplished but so it is so we're told I mean Peter says cast your anxieties on him because he cares for you so that this there's this recognizing the Lord's care for us and it it pulls it just kind of starts to root out our own worries and our own anxieties pret now now we were going to talk about the difference between prayer between Thanksgiving and gratitude and this is an interesting thing I think this is a casual distinction I think if you start looking in the dictionary at the definition of gratitude and the definition of Thanksgiving you're gonna say hey pastor look they're supposed to mean the same thing but let maybe we can our contrasting the difference between Christian Thanksgiving and non-christian Thanksgiving or someone who doesn't believe in God the way they give things but you you see it all the time I mean if you're if you just go to the bookstore or you're on Facebook or anyway there's this there's this kind of gratitude movement that's out around there and no doubt you've you've ever bumped into it there's you can buy a gratitude journal a lot of people talk about the practices of having gratitudes at the end of the day or you can you write down three things that you're thankful for that happened that day and that's great I mean that's that's fine I'm not gonna I don't think you should be in granite you could have like sit down and talk about the things you're not thankful for that's not what I'm suggesting but I want to put a difference here that gratitude at least in the way that I'm using the word hear that gratitude recognizes the goodness of the thing that's in front of you so I for example have a cup of coffee in front of me and I could recognize the goodness of the coffee the wonderful flavor the pungent aroma they lukewarm heat of the thing the caffeine oh the Blessed caffeine do you know this is basically like you know one of the greatest gifts from God coffee I've got it and I can but I can look at the gratitude wants me to look at the coffee and be grateful for the coffee Thanksgiving wants me to look past the gift to the giver of the gift and that tract the giver of the goes all the way eventually to God so that I'm so that went so that when I look at them at a meal that's set in front of me I'm not giving thanks to the chicken for being fried or to the to the I'm not grateful for the lettuce for being Salmonella free or whatever I look past the goodness I look past a good gift to the goodness of the giver now now pagan granted so let's say it cleanly like this pagan gratitude is motivated by the goodness of the gift christian thanksgiving is motivated by the goodness of the giver of the gift namely God himself let's let's make sure we get that pagan gratitude is grateful because of the goodness of the gift Christian thankfulness is thankful because of the goodness of God that every good and perfect gift comes down from God the Father of all lights that in whom there's no shadow of change you're turning God that God is the source of everything that comes to us and what that does is it gives us the great freedom the phenomenal Christian only freedom of being thankful right maybe let's say like this it's it those who have faith it's the freedom of those who have faith to be thankful even for the bad stuff I mean if I'm if I'm a five this pagan thankfulness that is just recognizing the goodness of the gift and then in my my parents say I'm a kid and my parents give me a you know a Twinkie or a whatever sweet tarts something like that I'm thankful because that's nice it's taste good and everything like this but I'm much more trouble being thankful for the gift of asparagus or kale whoever invented eating kale I don't know now maybe you say well you recognize that it's nutritious or whatever but that's hard for a kid to see that it's good for you even though it tastes poorly and this is the point is that I can trust not the goodness of the food but the goodness of the giver that my mom and my dad know what's best for me and so I'm thankful for this thing that I can't see the goodness in at least from my perspective I can't see how it could possibly be good for me and yet I'm thankful for it because I know the goodness of my mom and my dad so the Christian can be thankful in all circumstances the good and the bad the happy and the sad enriches and in poverty in want and in abundance in every circumstance that we find ourselves in sickness and in health we can be thankful to God for whatever he's given to us because we know not the goodness of the thing but the goodness of God we know that he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all does it gives us everything with him so that the hands that give us every gift are the hands that were pierced for us the hands that were nailed to the cross for us that the gifts we might not recognize the goodness of the gift but we recognize the goodness of God and this is how we can as Paul says to the Thessalonians give thanks in every circumstance God I don't know I don't know why I've got this sickness I don't know I don't know why I've got this trouble I don't know why I've got all these things falling apart I don't I don't recognize the goodness in any of these things but I recognize the goodness of you IRA I recognize the goodness of your gospel I recognize the goodness of your will towards me I recognize your fatherly mercy I recognize this and I'm thankful do you see the fruit and you know how crazy this drives the devil that we can give thanks for everything we can give thanks in all circumstances that we can give thanks to God for every blessing and benefit Paul and prayer teaches us this all right Thanksgiving now here's another thing that I want you to see in Paul when you go and you study these 18 verses where Paul talks about how he prays and that is that Paul has a certain pattern of mind a certain pillar of thought and uh and any and that comes up in his prayers and his writing and his thinking and his actions and everything and that is this pattern of faith love and hope this this little triad comes all the time in fact when you are baptized you're enrolled in the school in in the in the Lord's school and he's given you three majors you're you you are triple majoring as a Christian you're majoring in faith you're majoring in love and you're majoring in hope and the Lord is gonna teach us all of these things he's gonna he's gonna give us advanced degrees in these three topics here's just a couple of verses so you can see it Paul writes let's see this is to the Colossians Colossians chapter 1 we give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ praying always for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have to all the saints for the hope that was laid up for you in heaven where have you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel or if you don't believe me yet 1st Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 2 & 3 Paul says we give thanks to God always for you all making mention of you in our prayers remembering without ceasing your work of faith your labor of love and patience of Hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God our Father you say well one more and I'll believe you pastor well here you go 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 3 to 4 we're bound to thank God always for you brethren a disease meat or right because your faith grows exceedingly and the love of every one of you towards all of you abounds so that we ourselves glory in you in the Churches of God for your patience and faith in all the persecutions and tribulations that you endure do you see this faith love and hope now the nice thing about getting our head around this and you say what now it seems like Paul went in the wrong direction right I mean it's supposed to be faith hope and love that's how we heard it preached at the wedding and it's because Paul said in first Corinthians 13 faith hope and love these three and the greatest of these is love now Paul is making the point there that faith and hope will give way to sight on the day of the resurrection so if your faith is very temporary your hope is very temporary it ends with the resurrection and love keeps going so we love now and love will be perfected and will keep going into all eternity so there won't be faith hope and love in the resurrection there will be just love faith hope and love so so Paul's making that point in first Corinthians 13 but that in that place he actually goes out of order the proper order if you want to call it that is faith love and hope and why this is the this is kind of the order or the pattern of our Christian life the Lord promises us things and we believe those promises that's faith and then we begin to love God and love our neighbor that's love and then the devil comes along and troubles us so much and we continue to hope in the Lord's promises through the midst of suffering let's hope so that these three things summarize our whole Christian life now Paul when he goes to give thanks look what he gives thanks for this is amazing if you say well pastor okay I heard what you said earlier you're supposed to wake up and give thanks first of all what should we give thanks for what should be the content of our thanks give what what works of God should we be recognizing and here's what Paul says you you recognize these three chief works of God faith love and hope so we see faith around us that we have faith in God that our family has faith in God that our neighbors our Christian neighbors have faith in God we give thanks to that and that there's love around love even beyond the borders of the Christian Church but they especially the Christians are handed over into this world to be to be those who love their neighbor and love their God we give thanks to that and we give thanks to God for every time we see hope enduring some sort of some sort of suffering so we give thanks to God for those things and then when it's time to offer our petitions we offer the petitions around those three things Lord keep us in the faith in purity FA strengthen our faith spread the faith abroad so that more and more people believe your name and trust in your promises that's the evangelism prayer of the church keep those who believe in your church so that their faith endures to the end that's the prayer for faith and we pray for love Lord let us abound in love let it let love know no boundaries among us let us be overflowing in a sacrificial love that reflects your love for us grant us we give you thanks for our neighbors so we can love and teach us how to love them and care for them and bless them in every way and then hope Lord don't let the sufferings the trials the persecutions and the troubles of this life destroy our hope grant that hope may endure all the way to the end I don't know if you feel like this like I do that the devil has particularly has his eye on hope that he's coming after hope that he that we you know you believe in Christ you start to love your neighbor but he just wants us to be despairing about how things are going and how things are gonna end it's just it's an assault on hope so we want to pray that the Lord would would continue to to strengthen these things faith love and hope it's really it's really quite simple and when we see Paul writing then when Paul Trey changes from his praying to his writing those are the three things that he's writing about he's writing about how the faith the doctrine and how its challenged by false doctrine and how we should believe in Jesus Christ and be declared righteous he's writing about love how we ought to care for our neighbor how love takes its shape according to the Ten Commandments in our various different vocations and he's writing about hope about how the devil is assaulting us through suffering and yet the Lord is using suffering to strengthen our hope this is just really these it's pretty simple when it comes down to it so Faith Hope and love these three these are the this is the content it's the content of the scriptures it's the content of our faith it's the content of our prayers it's the content if you're a pastor it's the content if you're preaching if you're a father or a mother it's the content of your teaching and your acting towards your children and so forth faith love and hope so this is really quite nice it helps us to have this clarity to to start to expand our prayers one of the problems that we have when we pray is that we pray for the things that we want but our wants the things that we want the things that we feel that we lack are so tiny they're so small that the Lord has to expand them and throw them open one of the problems if we just pray for the things that we want we pray for daily bread that's really the only thing that we that we feel that we want maybe a little bit of forgiveness but though but the Lord in is in this and this is what st. Paul he's he's flinging open our desires so that we want much more than we want by nature that the Holy Spirit creates desires in us for more that's what we've got to talk about after the break let's do that now go to the break and we'll come back continue we'll talk about expanded desires and Paul's theological prayers you're listening to cross v don't go anywhere we read back hey I'm thankful I'm thankful that you're back with me here on cross the fence god be praised I'm a he grant us all ears to hear his word that's his gifts we're talking about Paul and prayer we talked about how Paul starts with thankfulness how he prays about faith love and hope and then we talked about how when we look to the scriptures it expands our desires for the things that we look to for God we we by nature want a couple of things and you get this just like for example if you study biology you remember the biology class and they say what do you need to live and they said well you gotta have like water food shelter internet connection I can't remember the list how it went but you know it's very very small and that's what you need for life but that's not I'm not according to Jesus according to Jesus the things we need for life are listed in the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer to be alive you need God's name and his kingdom and his will you need a little daily bread forgiveness of sins delivering from evil to try wait a minute he's gonna deliver us from evil lead us not a leading from temptation leading not into temptation and deliverance from evil that's the full life that we have from God that when Jesus says I came that you may have life and have it abundantly that's the abundant life this is not just a little bit of daily bread it's having God's name as well as kingdom is weren't as Spirit and his gifts in his kindness that's the main thing but the problem is we don't feel it our body just there see our bodies and our minds do not they don't we do not feel a hunger for the Lord's word like we ought to that comes by the spirit now so think of it like this you know you're when you're hungry if you haven't eaten all day your stomach starts to preach to you it growl it grows grumbles at you or put some food in me it's your stomach tells you that your and your body tells you if you're sick you feel terrible or if you're cold or if you're hot or if whatever if you have to go to the bathroom it's your body preaches to you about your bodily needs now so that we by nature feel our lack of food now what this means is when if we're left to ourselves almost every single prayer is a daily bread prayer now I want you to imagine the the first three petitions of the Lord's Prayer give us this day our daily bread wait a minute hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come Thy will be done those three things which are a prayer for God's name Kingdom and we'll a prayer for God's Word and God's Spirit a prayer for all these spiritual gifts just in Matt just imagine if you had a stomach for God's Word just like your ear just imagine this your ear had a little stomach behind it and every time you heard a sermon you'd think oh that's so nice I'm stuffed if you're sir if you're pastor preached for a long time you know if you preached these four hour sermons you like ah stop and you'd be like loosening the belt on your stomach ear you know or or if you hadn't if you hadn't if you hadn't read God's Word or had a devotion in two days it's I'm starving you wouldn't care about anything else I gotta go hear God's Word or if you heard someone see if you heard a false teacher you know someone preaching you know health and wealth there's some prosperity gospel or or denying that Jesus is God or whatever you'd get food you'd get ear stomach poisoning and you'd be up all night throwing up words out of your ear oh that made me sick I'm never going back to that place again just imagine it you know imagine if God gave you so that you naturally felt your lack of God's Word I mean you need God's Word more than you need food you need to hear his promises more than you need water to drink more than you need sure you need his name his kingdom at his will more than you need anything else you just don't feel it neither do i it's the these things are spiritually discerned not physically discerned if we had a little ear stomach you know there'd be there be lines outside of the church like like Texas Roadhouse on a Saturday night people who want to be getting in you'd have to have four seedings for church and everything else if you felt the pain of not having God's Word but we just don't feel it now what that means is if we're praying from our pain from our natural pain from our natural lack our prayers are all going to revolve around the fourth petition give us this day our daily bread but especially the Lord's Prayer and especially Paul's prayer are going to expand that it's day X we have X to think of it this way we have expanded desires this is it's so helpful for me to think about this I don't know if it is for you you guys got to let me know but it's so helpful for me because one of the things that I think we get huh tricked into thinking in the Christian Church is that desire is bad we think desire sin desire heed desire whatever we think that that desire is always a particularly negative kind of thing but it's not there are godly desires there's godly affections there's things that the Bible in fact commands us to want blessed are those who do not walk in the way of sinners sit in the seat of scoffers and stand in the way of transgression but their delight is in the law of the Lord and on their law they he he meditates day and night my soul long J even faints for the courts of the Lord that we long to see the presence of God that we desire to hear his word that we hunger for his for his affection and his promises and his kindness to us that we have this we we have these expanded desires to be free from evil to be free from death to be free from the corruption of this world to be free from temptation to see the devil's Kingdom overthrown to rejoice in the light of the Lord and his gifts and to love one another we have this we have this longing to serve our neighbor a longing to bless those who come around us this is this is this expanded desire so that the Christian wants more than just a little bite of food the Christian wants the kingdom of God the Christian wants the Holy Spirit to come with God's Word and bless and to end to shut the gates of hell to slam them closed and for every person to come into the Lord's glorious kingdom the Christian wants all the things of God to belong to them and their family and their friends and their neighbors I mean this is how big the prayers are of the that that Jesus teaches us in the Lord's Prayer we said thy kingdom come thy will be done give me everything that's yours O Lord in fact the only petition in the Lord's Prayer that's small that's minuscule is the is the Lord's is the daily bread petitioned give us this day just a little bit of bread I don't want that much I just want a little bit of bread that's all I'm asking for today but your kingdom and your name and your I want everything else you got just a little bit of bread now I think I mentioned it was before the break I mentioned that there was there's one other thing that we might naturally feel a need for and that's because not only do we have a stomach but we also have a conscience so that our conscience tells us that there's something wrong morally with us so so I just want to make sure that we're clear on this are our stomach says feed me and our conscience says make the pain go away but just like the stomach that's very imprecise so our conscience is very imprecise without God's Word so you know the parents have to teach the kids what's good for the stomach I mean the stomach doesn't care it'll take four pounds of nachos just as well as it'll take a you know a cup full of broccoli just fill it up so you have to bring wisdom to know what to fill the stomach with so also the card the conscience just does make the pain go away any way possible and if you want a explanation for every world religion and all the kooky kind of nonsense and the cults and everything else like this it's it's located in this in precise pain of the conscience my conscience tells me that there's something wrong with me and with the world that I'm in trouble in fact that there's a right and a wrong and I stand on the I'm I stand on the wrong side of the right so my conscience tells me there's something wrong but then the conscience doesn't tell me what to do about it the conscience doesn't tell me that the only thing that heals the pain in the conscience is the forgiveness of sins won by the blood of Jesus I mean my conscience is just as likely to grab on to the Book of Mormon or does the to the to the to some sort of works righteousness or some sort of Buddhist chant or I can grab on to the Quran my conscience is just as likely to grab on to any of these things to make the pain go away but the only thing that truly delivers a good conscience is the blood of Christ the blood of Jesus that's it that's the only thing so that God's Word has to tell us how to fix the pain of the conscience so we have the fitt petition of the Lord's Prayer forgive us our trespasses that's a prayer that grows out of the cross out of the atoning work of Christ and that gives us a good conscience so give us this day our daily bread forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us those are meeting our natural needs but the other petitions of the Lord's Prayer are meeting supernatural needs our need our greatest of all needs to have this full life that the Lord wants for his name and his kingdom now Paul teaches us about this in his prayers when you go and you read these prayers of Paul as he reports them to you it's incredible to see the things that he prays for I mean he has these monstrous prayers that are full of theology and doctrine that are for all of these incredible blessings I'll just give you one example this is Ephesians chapter 3 verses 14 to 21 Paul says for this reason I bow my knees to the father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named asking that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge did you see what paul / paul says i pray that you would know the thing that you can't know I mean Paul look at Paul I pray do you know the thing you can't know that you would be had to say that you would know you would comprehend with all the saints the breadth and length and depth and height than to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge and he goes on that you may be filled with the fullness of God Paul says I pray that that you the Holy Spirit open your mind to understand what you can't know naturally I pray that Christ Himself the Son of God would dwell in your hearts by faith I pray that you would be filled with the abundance of God not the minimum kind of required dose of God but that the entirety of God would would fill you that you would be strengthened by God's Holy Spirit according to your inner man to trust in Christ to love your neighbor and to fight against the flesh and endure all this affliction these are incredible prayers of Paul did you see I mean this is why and look I don't want to I don't want to pretend like I'm some sort of expert in prayer I mean the reason why I got to read these prayers is because I'm terrible at it but Paul simply throws open as our minds and our hearts and our imagination when it comes to what we ought to pray for it's just for the phenomena here I'll give you another one this is Paul's prayer in 1st Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 13 to 16 just to get a flavor for this for this cause also we thank God without ceasing because when you received the Word of God which you heard from us you received it not as the word of man but as it is in truth as the Word of God which works effectively in you who believe for you brothers became followers of the Churches of God in Judea who are in Christ Jesus for you have suffered these things from your own countrymen even as they have from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and their prophets and persecuted us and don't please God and are contrary to all men and forbid us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved so Paul says look he says you he says I thank God because you received the word that you heard from us that you that you received God's Word not as a word of man but as the word of truth and you believed and by believing God's Word works in you and then you became like the other churches in your suffering and yet you endured this affliction in the name of Jesus willing even to give up your life it's just it's just incredible here here here's another one 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 Paul says we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of his calling that he would fulfill all his good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ do you see that Paul is praying that God would count us to be worthy of the calling that we have that God would fulfill in us all of his good pleasure that the name of Jesus would be glorified in our teaching and on our believing and our trusting in him and his kindness and all these things and that we would be glorified in Christ it's just that Paul Paul's prayer and I don't know how it is for you and for your prayers but Paul's prayers simply they open up my own petitions to ask for so much more than I would just even imagine so there's a there's a I don't know I hope hopefully what this this hour has you know how you when you teach your kids how to ride the bike you put them on the bike and you run with them for a while to give them some momentum and then they carry on I hope this has given you a little bit of momentum in your own study of the scripture to look into what st. Paul says about prayer and to go and and and to begin to study it yourself and to begin to let your own prayers be expanded by the Holy Spirit but as we do all this we always want to remand this is maybe the most important thing we want to remember that when we pray we don't pray alone we always pray our Father and we know we rejoice that in fact Jesus this is an amazing thing that Jesus prays also with us and especially for us hebrews chapter 7 remember this little verse it's a little phrase it says he Jesus always lives to intercede for us we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous one Paul says in Romans that Jesus is our intercessor that he stands before the throne of God and he prays and even as we falter in our prayers even as the our prayers are assaulted in the spiritual warfare we know that Jesus is there praying can you imagine that Jesus is there praying for us right now you're listening to me right now Jesus is praying for you before the Father in heaven that's what the Bible says and God the Father is pleased to hear those prayers of Jesus and he's pleased to answer them on behalf of his son so may God grant us the spirit of intercession that God would push out our worry with Thanksgiving that God would shape up our minds around faith love and hope in our own prayers that God would expand the things that we want and so in expanding those expand the things that we pray for and may God especially grant us the comfort of knowing this that Jesus Christ the one who died for us continues to bless us by praying for us by forgiving our sins by bringing the evidence of his blood before the father and interceding on our behalf so that we might know that we belong to him behold what manner of love the father is given to us then we're called the children of God and God be praised hey thanks for listening to cross defense this pastor Brian Wolfe Mueller pastor of Hope Lutheran Church I hope you'll join me next week for more to let the Holy Spirit set our minds and our hearts and imaginations on fire with the glory the comfort the wisdom of his word the clarity the gospel and the peace that we have in his promises God's peace be with you thanks for listening to cross defense to being involved in the YouTube channel thanks for if you like this stuff I mean subscribe we're doing it all the time click the little Bell comment like it if you like it that's great if you don't like it then don't like it I mean put the don't like but thanks for thanks for being involved and thanks for being here love to hear the feedback and and and hear from you guys got to be speed with you

Channel: Bryan Wolfmueller

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Length: 51min 48sec (3108 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 04 2019