God wants to answer prayers.

Greetings on this Thursday!  I’m glad to be with you as we come to a highlight of our week in the Pastor’s Workshop. 

Our current series is “Prepare with Prayer”.  This week we’ve been focused on one of the most famous prayers in all the Scripture.  It’s the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray.  It’s the Lord’s Prayer.

Not only have we looked at the prayer, but also the surrounding verses – the prelude and postscript.  They provide an important context, informing our practice (our praying) of the Lord’s Prayer. 

Thursday is a “creative climax” of our week.  Today we review our work.  We “put all the pieces” together.  We craft and draft a message that we pray “gives voice” to a “Word” we have heard from the Scripture by the Spirit.

As I gather my notes and collect my thoughts here are talking points for my message this week. 

I believe God loves to answer prayers.  More importantly, I believe Jesus believed God loves to answer prayers.

How else can you explain the two teachings at the end of our text today? “Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find.  Knock and it shall be opened to you.” Then there is also Jesus’ second lesson: “Who among you, if their child asks for a fish will give them a snake or asks for an egg will give them a scorpion?  If you know how to give good things to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give good…”  These teachings are invitations to prayer and assurances of answers.

There are those who have taken these two teachings and stretched them beyond their bounds. The “Prosperity Gospel” has encouraged a preaching and praying of these verses where they have become a pandering to our wants rather than prayer for God’s will.  When people have come up empty in their prayer, they wonder, “What’s up?”

Here’s what I think is “up”.  God does love to answer prayers, and particularly prayers that are in harmony with Jesus’ prayer, “Our Father, Thy Kingdom come and Thy Will be done.”

Prayer is the expression of what’s on our soul.  Prayer gives voice to the hurts and hopes of our lives.  I believe that God, in God’s love, hears and answers these cries of our hearts. 

I believe that Jesus, as our Lord of love, has a heart for us and our world.  Jesus, as our Lord of love, has desires and hopes for us and our world.  One of the greatest privileges we have in prayer is to offer our human voice to lift up Jesus’ desires and hopes for us and our world.  One of the greatest gifts of prayer God gives is to pray our Lord’s Prayer.  I believe God loves to answer that prayer. 

We see how God loved to answer our Lord’s Prayer in the life and ministry of Jesus.  It is clear from the Scriptures that Jesus loved to pray.  In fact in the text today, Jesus was just finishing up his prayer time.  As he did this, his disciples began to make a connection: Jesus prays and then goes into the day and performs mighty works, teaches inspiring truth, exudes a love for people that draws them in droves.  The disciples saw the connection between prayer and practice.  So they made the request, “Lord, teach us how to pray”.  Teach us how to pray so we can have similar results and make that same powerful connection with God. 

Incredibly, Jesus honored their ask. In just six short phrases he summed up essentials of what was on his heart for his disciples to lift up. Jesus gave his disciples “his prayer” to pray.  

He gives his prayer to us as well… To Pray! Notice I said, “Pray” not “Say”.  Have you heard the expression, “Say the Lord’s Prayer”?  Saying the Lord’s Prayer can be a mindless repetition of phrases we know by heart. With thoughtless recitation this powerful prayer becomes a pile of empty words.   To “Pray” the Lord’s prayer asks us to: Pause and Focus on the Prayer as a gift of Jesus to us; Put our heart, soul, and mind into the Prayer; and to Personalize the Prayer by asking not simply God’s Kingdom come and Will be done on “earth”, but more specifically God’s Kingdom come and Will be done in our homes, with our families and friends, our schools and jobs, our community and nation.

As we pray the Lord’s Prayer God will bring God’s answers through our lives and our witness.  I’ve included a favorite story of how God honored and answered the Lord’s Prayer through the life of a good friend of mine.

Lastly, God does want to answer Jesus’ prayer, the “Lord’s Prayer”, “Thy Kingdom come and Thy Will be done”, in and through your life as well. The three postscripts to the Prayer: The Friend at Midnight, “Ask, Seek, and Knock”, and the “How Much More of Goodness” encourage us in that assurance. 

So pray the Lord’s Prayer.  And know that when you say,”Amen” the prayer is not over.  The answer is just beginning!

That’s a brief overview of what will be expanded on for Sunday.  These are my thoughts and reflections.  Make sure you also take time to review your notes and to summarize your meditations.  They are “the message” God has been giving you through the Scripture by the Spirit this week.  Your “sermon” is important to record.

I hope you’ll tune in to worship, not only to hear more about the “Lord’s Prayer”, but also to be blessed by some great music and encouraged through time of prayer. 

In that prayer I look forward to being with you on Saturday for some final preparation and then on Sunday for some uplifting worship.   I think that’s all part of God’s Will being done as we share in Christ’s life together at Spring Valley. 

Prayer:  Gracious God, thank you for the blessing of a beautiful day.  Thank you for how we can follow Jesus’s example and begin the day with prayer.  Thank you for providing a prayer we can use to start this and every day – Jesus’ prayer. Thank you for how you love to answer our Lord’s prayer.  Help us to be open and participating in Your answer by the working of your Holy Spirit in and through us.  We lift this prayer in the name of the One who shows the power of answered prayer, Jesus our Lord. Amen.