Tim Keller | Prayer in the Psalms: Discovering How to Pray

so i'm supposed to be talking to you about prayer in the psalms and of course since the psalms is the prayer book of the bible the place to learn about prayer there's almost an infinite amount of things i could say i mean the lord's prayer tells you in a nutshell what you should pray but it's the psalms the book of psalms that's the place in the bible where it teaches you how to pray and every single possible human situation or condition is described or depicted in the psalms and you're in every one of those conditions you are instructed you are shown how to pray how to address god how to pray yourself through it so there's almost an infinite number of themes i could be touching on instead i'm going to just touch on one i'm going to tell you what that theme is and why i think it's helpful i hope today and the theme i'm thinking about is in psalm 25 14 the better translations i think put it like this the friendship of the lord is with those who fear him and to them he makes his covenant known the friendship of the lord is with those who fear him and to them he gives his covenant he shares his covenant makes known to him now uh the word friendship is a translation of a hebrew word soth it's a word that means intimate counsel and advice the kind of counsel that an intimate friend gives to another intimate friend and uh it also by the way some you can find some of your translations might say the secret of the lord is with those who fear them because that's also the meaning of the word uh it's to your friends you tell secrets you confide in them so psalm 25 verse 14 says it's possible to have a relationship with god that is one of intimate friendship in which god is confiding in us uh that god becomes our close friend that's what that is talking about through prayer among other things we get many things through prayer but one of the things prayers it means to is friendship with god now why do i think that's helpful right now uh think of the word spirituality for a second it's a very popular word now and it's it's it's fine it's with us it means generally speaking experience of god prayer i use the word spirituality but there's a caution a cautionary note that needs to be struck i think at this point and that is our secular culture loves spirituality as in i'm spiritual but not religious and though spirituality and religiosity can you be given a number of different definitions i think what they mean when they say i'm spiritual not religious is this i want to be inspired i want to feel i have some kind of connection to something divine beyond me but i still want to be able to live my life the way i want to live my life i don't want the discipline of discipleship i don't want the discipline of having to belong to a community so i want spiritual not religious usually means i want to feel that i'm in connection with some kind of divine reality love peace but i still want to live my life the way i want to live my life now what's interesting to me is is the biblical understanding of friendship with god gives you the intimacy that modern people are looking for and actually gives you an intimacy with god that other religions can't offer they don't offer they don't try and yet the commitment to truth to discipleship to sacrifice is all there once we understand what it means when it says when the bible says that through prayer we can be friends with god so let's uh divide the rest of our time like this friendship with god that it's possible why it's possible and how it's possible that is possible why and how first it's possible that is possible that's what the bible says it says uh exodus verse 33 chapter 33 verse 11 god talked to moses as a man talks with a friend you know james chapter 2 i think 23 yeah abraham we're told was a friend of god now aristotle thinks that's outrageous aristotle believed that the idea that you could be friends with a god was crazy and the reason he said that was uh it was impossible to be friends with a god was because we didn't have enough in common now what aristotle is saying when he says you can't possibly be friends with a god we don't have enough in common aristotle is giving us an idea of friendship which is right uh c s lewis was one of the best modern-day channelers of the ancient understanding of friendship in his book the four loves and at one place in the four loves c.s lewis says look eros which is of course romantic erotic love and philos which is friendship love uh in their essence they're somewhat different if you had to depict them in eros two people are looking at each other adoring each other but in philos friendship two people are side to side you know shoulder to shoulder and looking at something else and um c.s lewis says that friendships start with the explicit or implicit statement you too you love this painting too you like this music too you've had the same experience with your parents too you see friendship starts when there's two people looking at the same thing and they have it in common you too and that's the beginning of friendship that's the beginning of the particular kind of intimacy that friendship brings uh and that's what aristotle's saying aristotle's saying you could never i mean no human being could ever look at a god and say you too how can you do that here's why it's possible here's why aristotle who's considerably smarter than not only me but probably everybody else in this room though there might be a couple outliers out there in which case three thousand years from now if the world goes on they'll be talking about your writings aristotle's a smart guy got this wrong here's why biblical theology almost every part of biblical theology shows us why friendship with god is possible first of all let's talk about the doctrine of god we have a triune god we have a god who's not unipersonal one god but three persons in that one god he's try personal father son holy spirit who know and love each other and have been doing that throughout eternity in which case you could actually say god the triune god is a friendship now by the way the doctrine of the trinity is such that if you put too much emphasis on god's oneness or too much emphasis on god's threeness you run into trouble you you don't do justice of the biblical material so you have to always keep this in balance but for the moment i'm just going to look at the threeness and saint augustine though by the way if he's ever criticized in his trinitarian theology he's often criticized for too much oneness but nevertheless augustine pointed out that if we had a unipersonal god a god who um existed as a as a person and then later on started to create angels or human beings or whatever see a love is only possible between persons and so if god starts as one person then god would be power before he was love in other words he'd use his power to start create beings and because he had beings then he could enter into relation with beings and those beings that that would be love but you see as augustine said if god was unipersonal then power would be primary and love would be secondary to god's being but because we have a triune god a god who is a friendship from all eternity therefore friendship communication love relationship is primary so the doctrine of god god is a friendship secondly the doctrine of creation you and i are made in the image of god what does that mean well it means a lot but again let's just take a look at one thing it means we're made in the image of a god who is a friendship and therefore i've i've been around when people have been dying i've been a pastor for a long time and i want you to know that i've never heard anybody say as they were dying oh i wish i had made more money i wish i'd spent more time at work i wish i'd accrued more power no no no they always say i wish i spent more time with my children i wish i had done better with my friends they're always saying of relationships relationships why because they're made in the image of god and this god because our god is triune love friendship relationship is primary and then there's then there's the whole history of redemption do you know that the entire history of redemption in a sense is one gigantic cosmic act of friendship first of all god becomes a human being god the son becomes a human being and you know what that means what it says in hebrews he was made like us in every way except for sin he was made like us in every way except for sin so first of all god knows what it's like to be human god knows what it's like to live a life but more than that on the cross john chapter 15 jesus says the greatest act of friendship possible is to lay down your life for your friends no other god of any other major religion could possibly lay down his life for his friends because no other god went through the the act the first act of friendship which is incarnation i'm going to become like you so i become vulnerable i become mortal i become killable and then on the cross what does jesus do he becomes like us not just in our life but in our death in our darkness in fact on the cross jesus christ becomes like us in our lostness my god my god why has you hast thou forsaken me in our lostness oh aristotle look look at jesus christ look at the son of god crying yelling being betrayed all the sorts of things that we go through feeling cut off from god and now you can look up at jesus christ the son of god you can say you too see is aristotle's wrong it's possible to be friends with god every single aspect of biblical theology tells you that's possible and or another way to put it is every single aspect of biblical theology makes it possible for us to be friends with god now this is about prayer let's talk finally about how it's possible that is possible why it's possible but how is it how is it cultivated and what i like about thinking about prayer in terms of friendship with god is the the the friendship gives them gives me a framework for the prayer here let me show you what i mean there's let's see how many will i give you one two three four i'm gonna give you five five ways to cultivate friendship with god number one obedience didn't think i was gonna go there did you intimacy with god obedience start there why well for example john chapter 15 verse 14 jesus says if you do what i command you you are my friends by the way psalm 66 18 says if i cherished iniquity in my heart he would not hear me now see let's i can't tell you how many people i know who found that they lost their intimacy with god their friendship with god because they weren't obeying him now here's where aristotle is kind of this is probably why aristotle was concerned about talking about friendship with god or the gods he says no we're too different well i tried to show you that because of biblical theology we're not too different because of the image of god in me and you and because the atonement and the incarnation on god's side because the image of god on our side stunningly we can be god's friends but the fact is that god is not just like us yes he's a lot like us only because of the incarnation and the atonement but he's not just like us and we must never think of friendship with god as treating him just like us uh for there's two reasons why obedience is necessary for friendship number one if he's if you obey him you're going to become more like him it's called holiness and all of you know who have had friendships for a long period of time his friends rub off on each other you know friends rub off on each other they they they uh they sharpen each other they move each other more toward one another in many ways you have to now jesus christ has already done his part he's come an enormously long way to become like us called the incarnation the atonement okay that's a long way but it's only through obedience you start to move closer to him you start to become more like him and therefore without obedience there can't be friendship because friendship in friendship people converge they come together they they they learn from each other they they become more like each other in many ways but here's a second reason why obedience is necessary for friendship with god and that is isn't it true don't we always say that if this person is going to be your friend you've got to let that person be him or herself you've got to allow transparency you need transparency you want that person not to try to be somebody that you want them to be they you need to know who that person really is that person needs to be him or herself with you isn't that friendship right okay well then how do you have friendship with the lord of the universe without treating him like he is and letting him be himself the only way to do that is to obey him obey him elizabeth elliott tells a story that i've never forgotten because you see why she talks she tells about how her little brother tommy was always told by his mother that he could play with his toys but he had to put them away and one day he had played with them a lot of them weren't really toys they were like paper bags and things like that that they used to play with but he had taken all these things out and he had been playing with him and he left them all over the floor and suddenly he noticed oh it's time for my music lessons because his music lessons are at a certain point so he went into the living room and he got up uh into the piano and he started playing his uh his his practice uh lessons well evidently uh elizabeth and tommy's mother came in saw that he had left the place a wreck walks in the living room and says tommy you did not put away your things but tommy because he was practicing a christian home you know what his lessons were he was playing hymns his his practicing the the the piano uh his practice piano time uh was uh playing hims so tommy says mom i'm singing praise to jesus and she said and this will go down you know in the ages she said there's no use singing praises to jesus when you're being disobedient but i have to tell you our churches are filled with people that come for a high on sunday but they're being disobedient they come they want to feel good they want to be spiritual but not religious i guess you know they want to have the feeling of intimacy but they don't want to get their life in line but that you know jesus said listen if you obey what i command you you are my friends so the first thing you need for an intimate friendship with god is obedience second thing you need is to believe in justification by faith alone you said oh yeah i knew tim keller would get to that somehow i have no idea how he does it but there it is well yeah um i think i have to and here's the reason why psalm 1 well before i even get this on one listen if you are trying to have a relationship with god and you do not understand the doctrine of justification by faith alone you do not understand that you are not saved by your works or saved by your moral efforts but that it's a it's a gift through what jesus christ did on the cross if you don't understand that your relationship with god has to be a mercenary one basically god cannot be your friend god will be your boss now when you're working for your employer you have a relationship you're the employee that's the employer and you might be friendly with your boss but you know the fundamental nature of the relationship no matter how friendly you are it is a mercenary relationship you have to do xyz and your boss has to pay you xyz if you don't do xyz no matter how friendly they are they're probably going to have to fire you even if the boss likes you the upper boss is going to make you go or on the other hand frankly if you do xyz and your boss doesn't do xyz then you have every right to quit they you might be friendly with the person but you say i'm sorry i took this job you paid this amount you're not paying me this amount i mean i like you you're a friend but i got to go so friendliness might be in there but the bottom line relationship is a mercenary one this person's your boss not your friend and unless you believe the gospel of grace unless you have a deep understanding of justification by faith alone then you're you can't have friendship with god it's going to be a mercenary one you're going to be doing your thing and you're going to be expecting your benefits and of course if god doesn't come through and answer some of your prayers you're going to say where are my benefits and you're going to be ready to walk because you were friendly to god but basically you're not friends you're not loving because you've been loved you're just doing because you've been done for now psalm 1 interestingly enough says the godly man or woman delights in the law of god and meditates on it day and night now i want you to know psalm chapter one that statement especially to me makes no sense without the new testament with the new testament makes incredible sense it doesn't just say i delight in the law of god uh to obey the law of god it says i delight the the godly man delights and meditates on it you know in jesus christ in the sermon on the mount gives you the ultimate meditation on the law of god there's a tendency if you just look at the ten commandments to say oh yeah i can do that but jesus says let's think about it let's meditate on it you know it says thou shalt not kill but you know the implications of that means means to love it means you're not supposed to hate you're not supposed to resent you're not supposed to despise yeah don't give it adultery but you know that means you're not supposed to lust and jesus is meditating on it let me tell you something once you understand once you meditate on the law of god the way jesus is is meditating on the law of god i don't know how somebody who is not saved by the blood of christ i don't know how somebody who doesn't understand the doctrine of justification by faith alone could ever look at the sermon on the mount and not be absolutely petrified by it and i think i think it's dr david martin lloyd-jones once heard i think he said this somewhere in his great book on that he said one time some somebody once said well to be a christian you don't have to believe in jesus you just have to live according to the sermon on the mount and dr lloyd jones says have you ever you read it god save me from the sermon on the mount i mean other if the sermon on the mind is true i've got no hope and see the only way to delight in the law of god and not find the law of god an everlasting despair is if you understand that jesus christ fulfilled the law of god perfectly he delighted in the law of god he went to the cross he lived the life you should have lived a perfect life and then die to death you should have died in your place and now because that's all taken care of now i can delight in the law of god now is it is now a way for me to please my friend why what's the law of god it tells me what my friend loves and what he hates and now that it's no longer an everlasting despair it's something i can actually use something i can actually do something i can actually uh uh use in my friendship it's no longer a way for me to to basically coerce god into giving me benefits and now it's a way for me to love my friend and they become like my friend you see so if you don't obedience number one to cultivate friendship of god belief in the justification by faith alone now thirdly a dynamic two-way communication you cannot be friends without two-way communication and everybody knows well prayer is praying to god but how do you hear god see friendship isn't friendship if it's just one way sometimes frankly okay prayer is a flare please okay well you know psalm 61 is it from the ends of the earth i cry to you don't you feel that way sometimes from the ends of the earth i cry to you o lord sure sometimes prayer is a flare but but for prayer to really be friendship you don't just talk you have to hear how does that happen now there are plenty of people who say oh yes of course to be friends with god you pray but you have to hear him in your heart and by the way yeah i actually do think especially when you do what i'm about to tell you to do hearing in your heart is definitely a fair way of putting it but i have to tell you when you just have a feeling that god is saying you should move and you should you should move and go to another town or you should take you should quit your job and take another job or you should date this person or you should stop dating this person god told me that whenever i have people that tell me they have this strong impression these things are from god i would say well that may be maybe the wisdom of god it may not be but i i wish i usually say i wish you wouldn't say god told me that because i'll tell you this tell you this oh well you know infelicitous rhetoric i will say this if i'm getting messages that i'm not sure from my friend it's not the best way to communicate so i think that's from her i think that's from him no i need to know it's from him or her and frankly things that go on your heart can be wrong you know george whitefield thought god told him that his son was going to grow up to be a great preacher and then his son died as an infant of a of a in tragically of a a sickness and whitfield realized that even though he thought god was telling him that was actually fatherly pride which he mistook as the as divine prompting and so look if you want to know that god is speaking to you and that's the only way to have a decent friendship you have to know your friend is speaking to you've got to go to the bible because in the bible god is speaking to you not only is god speaking to you hebrews chapter 4 verse 12 says the word of god is alive and active you know in in genesis 1 god said let there be light and there was light he doesn't say god said let there be light and then went ahead and made light god's word was his power god said let let to be light and there was light go to psalm 29 it talks about the uh it says uh uh you know the the thunder it thunders it lightnings and it says the voice of the lord thunder is the voice of the lord lightnings it's like genesis chapter one that is when god speaks it happens god's word is a power it's not like god's word is not like our word we say something but then we have to do it god's word is his act of power and when you hear god speaking to you in his word when you study his word when you hear his voice to you in his word that is his power coming into your life that is his reality coming into your life so the psalm chapter 1 is the first psalm but psalms is a prayer book and psalm 1 is not about praying you notice that it's about meditating on the bible and eugene peterson and some other people who have studied the psalms for years say that psalm 1 is a gateway into the rest of the psalter it's almost like saying if you want to make sure your prayer life is meaningful you need to be deep into the word of god when you study the word of god god is speaking to you and then you respond in prayer and you must respond to what god says to you in his word not just how you're feeling i i just mentioned eugene peterson he can say some powerful things about that peterson says that if it's friendship it has to be two ways prayer listen to the word of god and then and then responding through prayer listen to the word of god and responding through prayer that's how you have a friendship because you're actually responding in prayer to to the friend who actually exists not just the friend you want him to be you've got to let your prayer life be galvanized by the word so eugene peterson says it like this in a world of prayers that indulge the religious ego and cultivate passionate longings the psalms stand out with a kind of angular austerity left to ourselves we will pray to some god who speaks what we like hearing or to the part of god we manage to understand but what is critical is that we speak to the god who speaks to us and to everything that he speaks to us in the bible there's a difference between praying to an unknown god whom we hope to discover in our praying and praying to the known god revealed through israel in jesus christ who speaks our language in the first we indulge our appetite for religious fulfillment in the second we practice obedient faith the first is a lot more fun the second is a lot more important what is essential in prayer is not that we learn to express ourselves but that we learn to answer god the songs were not prayed by people trying to understand themselves they were not the record of people searching for the meaning of life they were prayed by people who understood that god had everything to do with them god not their feelings was the center god not their souls was this issue god not the meaning of life was critical feeling souls and meanings were not excluded they're very much in evidence but they are not the reason for the prayers human experience might provoke the prayers but they do not condition them it is not simply a belief in god that conditions these prayers but a doctrine of god we would rather pray by exploring our own deep spiritual capacities with god as background music without bothering with the tedium and complexity of the scriptures but if we elect the psalms to train us in prayer these are the conditions in which we will be working it's got to be two ways you want to have friendship you've got to be immersed in the word of god your prayer has to be in response to what god's saying to you in his word that's number three so we said oh how do you cultivate friendship obedience belief in justification by faith alone dynamic two-way communication in which your prayer is a response to your getting deeply grounded in the word here's the fourth sometimes a real experience of his presence that the psalms calls seeking his face um got to be careful here and i am a presbyterian so how i don't know this might sound kind of strange sometimes you got to feel them now look let's think about what the bible means when the bible talks about seeking god's face i seek thy face even today in our digital age if you have been emailing somebody or you connected with them online or you even talked them on the phone the first time you see them in the flesh and you shake their hand or you give them a hug you know what they usually usually say you say something like this great to finally meet you and the reason for it is to actually see somebody face to face flesh the flesh conveys so much more about that person than any other medium possible you're just getting all kinds of data you're getting such a better picture of the reality who that person is than you can ever do through email or through social media or through phone calls or frankly even by the way you know skype or things like that to see them in the flesh three-dimensional and there's something like that going on when the bible talks about seeking god's face i mean the bible uses sensory language sometimes for prayer so psalm 27 which i've already talked about david says there's only one primary thing he asks to gaze on the beauty of the lord to gaze on the beauty of the lord don't believe he's talking about a literal vision to his physical eyes uh you know psalm 63 says oh god my soul thirsts for you i've seen you in the sanctuary i beheld your power and your glory because your love is better than life i will praise you my soul is satisfied as with the richest of foods you notice in psalm uh one of the psalms says taste and see that the lord is good it doesn't just say know that the lord is good taste it now why does it use sensory language jonathan edwards is going to say it's one thing to know god is holy with the mind it's another thing to sense his holiness on your heart in prayer so that it changes you and makes you not want to sin anymore it's one thing to know in the abstract that god is love it's another thing to actually feel his love on your heart sense it on your heart so that you start to live loved instead of living such a needy life there's a difference and and you can't always you certainly aren't in control of when that happens but friendship with god means that sometimes when you pray you see his face as it were not with the physical eyes john owen who's a pretty you know austere theologian in many ways puts it like this he says when you're meditating on the word of god first comes the actual exercise of the mind he says fix your thoughts and meditations on the spiritual truth then comes the inclination of all your affections of your heart toward these things whereby they cleave to the spiritual truths and make an engagement unto them now what he's saying is first of all you fix the biblical doctrine in your mind but then secondly try to incline your heart toward it ask yourself questions like if i really took this seriously why would i would i feel different yes i would would i act different yes i would you know talk to yourself and say have i really grasped this this is remarkable how would this make me different if i took it seriously so you're inclining your heart toward the truth and then he says finally sometimes comes a relish and a savor in which lies the sweetness and the satisfaction of the spiritual life we then taste by experience that god is gracious and that the love of christ is better than wine and then he says he adds this if we settle for mere speculations and mental notions about christ as doctrine we shall find no transforming power or efficacy communicated unto us thereby but when under the conduct of spiritual light our affections do sometimes cleave unto him with full purpose of heart our minds fill up with thoughts and delights in him then virtue which means change in character will proceed from him to purify us increase our holiness and sometimes notice sometimes fill us with joy unspeakable and full of glory so friendship means obedience it comes from being it's cultivated through obedience belief in justification by faith alone a dynamic interplay between your prayer life and the word of god and sometimes by god's grace because you're seeking it seeing his face here's one last thing of all the things you should meditate on in order to be enhance your friendship with god meditate on jesus death as an act of friendship meditate on jesus death as an act of friendship uh derek kidner my favorite commentator of the psalms and the proverbs he wrote the tyndale commentaries and psalms and problems many years ago proverbs he defines friendship now he's talking when the bible talks about friendship he defines it at one point as candor and constancy candor means vulnerability openness transparency constancy means commitment sticking with you there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother so constance excuse me candor and constancy means friends always let you in never let you down i always have time for you always open their hearts but never let you down well take a look at jesus christ on the cross you know i don't remember much from my college boxing class but i do remember they said never have your hands at your sides never have your hands out like this always have your hands like this always always always put your hands in front of you never put your hands to your side jesus christ not only put his hands to his side his hands were nailed out there how much more vulnerable could he be he made himself absolutely vulnerable to you he let you all the way in and of course he never let he didn't let you down he had all of hell coming down on him and yet he said not my will but thine be done you know charles spurgeon i think it was that said you know and jesus christ looked down from the cross and saw the people denying him and betraying him and forsaking him and mocking him and rejecting him and in the greatest act of friendship in the history of the world he stayed he just stayed you know there's a in the second boris karloff frankenstein movie some of you are saying where is this going the second bars karla frankenstein movie was called bride of frankenstein there's a pretty famous uh scene in that second movie where the monster who still can't speak he's growling you know you know he's on he's running away through the woods and in the middle of the forest he finds this cottage of an old blind man the man's blind and he's uh as the monster is coming in the blind man is on his knees praying to god saying oh god please give me a friend to be of some comfort to me in my terrible loneliness and then in comes the monster now the monster he the blind man can't see him not afraid but he can sense the man can't the monster can't speak and he says oh you have an affliction you can't speak i have an affliction i can't see we can be friends so the blind man begins to be so friendly this is something the monster the frankenstein monster has never experienced he feeds him he takes care of him he sings to him and and you can see under the the power of the friendship which the monster has never experienced he starts to humanize he starts to say things like food and good but then of course some soldiers who are out there trying to find the monster they look into the cottage they see the monster they attack the cottage the cottages burn down to the ground and all you see at the end of the scene is the monster groping off into the woods out of the fire and the and the smoke just saying friend friend friend where's my friend it's almost like the frankenstein monsters it reminds me of me because until i found jesus christ i felt like i was sort of stitched together by what everybody else said about me you know my parents said one thing about me and my you know my friend said another thing about me and everybody had a different thing they ver a verdict they they gave me about who i was so my self-image looked like a frankenstein monster uh what i needed what you need is a friend the ultimate friend whose love can overturn all the other verdicts and make you human we're all out there like him every human being is out there looking for the friend friend friend if i could just find the ultimate friend then i could finally be the human being that i'm meant to be well here he is let's pray thank you father for being a god who can be our friend no other religion offers this they don't even try many understand it as being madness but we thank you thank you so much that it is not it's it's god's truth we pray that you would teach us how not just to say our prayers but to be a friend to you in prayer be a friend to us find us show us your face we pray it in jesus name amen

Channel: The Gospel Coalition

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Keywords: the gospel coalition, the gospel, gospel, coalition, pastors, pastor, minister, ministry, Christ, Christian, Christianity, church, churches, faith, reformed, reformation, bible, biblical, evangelical, Jesus, God, spiritual, spirit, Holy Spirit, preacher, preaching, teaching, psalm, psalms, prayer, pray, praying, keller, tim keller, prayerbook, prayer book, book of prayer, bible prayers, how to pray

Id: QgwzuFG5LCk

Length: 39min 46sec (2386 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 12 2020