Sermon from September 24, 2006
In preparing and presenting these sermons on prayer I feel like a child enrolling in a new school. It is exciting and daunting; challenging and humbling.

I have found it immensely helpful to draw on other sources and authors, not only as serious thinkers regarding prayer, but as guides and mentors and models. Because the goal is not to have just a good understanding of prayer but to become devoted to prayer; to become a "pray-er."

Why do we pray? I can think of several reasons we pray:
-We want things. (jobs, houses, relationships, material possessions, etc.)
-We want to know things. (Should I take this job? Which school should I go to? Should I buy this? Should I marry her?)
It is appropriate for us to come to God with our questions and requests. We also desire intervention, either in our lives or someone else's life (such as, "God, I want my friend to know Christ"; "My mother is ill, help her, give me strength, hope").

We pray because we need for strength and help beyond ourselves. We pray to express our gratitude. We want to thank God for the good things He has done in our lives and for the gifts He's given to us. Although these things are good and appropriate, is this all there is to prayer? Is there more to prayer?

Today, I'd like to talk about the most important aspect of prayer which might be the most neglected part of prayer. It may be the main reason for prayer, the ultimate incentive for prayer. The ultimate purpose of prayer is not to get things but to draw us near to God. If we treat prayer as a "transaction" rather than relationship it will decline into a dutiful practice with no connection to life.

Jonathan Aitken, a former Member of Parliament in Great Britain, compares his early relationship with God to that with a bank manager: "I spoke to him politely, visited his premises intermittently, occasionally asked him for a small favour or overdraft to get myself out of difficulty, thanked him condescendingly for his assistance, kept up the appearance of being one of his reasonably reliable customers, and maintained superficial contact with him on the grounds that one of these days he might come in useful." When convicted of perjury and sentenced to prison, Aitken decided to pursue a more personal relationship. (Yancey, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?)

When God created human beings, He wanted someone to love as well as someone capable of returning that love.

The apostle Paul explained creation to the philosophers in Athens:
God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'" (Acts 17:27)

Prayer is God's invitation for us to come into His loving presence. Our true "home" is with God.

"Today the heart of God is an open wound of love. He aches over our distance and preoccupation; He mourns that we do not draw near to Him; He grieves that we have forgotten Him and He weeps over our obsession with muchness and manyness. He longs for our presence." (Foster, Prayer)

The aim of prayer (and life) is to know God.
This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight." (Jeremiah 9:23-24)

In every relationship there is more to "knowing" someone than just "about" them. We can know a lot "about" someone but not really know them intimately and personally.

You can know a lot "about" God:
-You can have extensive theological depth and understanding.
-You can know the Bible from cover to cover.
And you can still not know God, not know His "heart," what God truly delights in.

Jesus spoke these words to the most learned, outwardly impressive, religious people of his day: You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. (John 5:39).

Jesus is talking about "life," eternal life, God-life, in relational terms! "Come to me!" Jesus says, "Life is in me!"

Through my sermons, you're getting to know me. You hear about the things that I enjoy, how I mess up, etc. You know some things that are true about me. But unless you live with me you have only a distance knowledge of me, like I do of you. ut you don't know me like my wife, Denise, knows me. She knows my failures, our struggles and triumphs, my areas of personal growth. She knows me because she's spent time with me.

I wonder how much of our knowledge of God and the "Christ-life" is second-hand knowledge.

"To be effective pray-ers we need to be effective lovers because real prayer comees not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love." -Foster, Prayer

Our Christianity has to make that connection with understanding with our head and experiencing with our hearts. One writer stated, "The most important discovery of my prayer-life is that prayer takes place in the heart, not in the head."

A lot of prayer starts in the head. But if we stay in our intellect, just "talking to God," if we never make the migration from our head to our heart, our prayer-life will become dry or formal. But it will not be personal or transformational. The head is where we think. But the heart is where we feel and experience and connect.

Instruction and information are important and good but they aren't the goal. God doesn't want to fill you up with information and stop there. He wants to meet you in a deep and meaningful and transformational relationship.

If we don't know that we are loved, and because we are loved we matter and have purpose, then Christianity is just a game. This is why prayer is so important. Prayer is an opportunity for us to connect with the God who loves us like no other person loves us.

"The important thing is not to think much, but to love much." -Teresa of Avila

In the first chapter of Mark's gospel, we see a day in the life of Jesus. He is preaching in Capernaum then he heals a demon possessed man, then he goes to Peter's home and heals Peter's mother-in-law. Eveningn comes and all the needy and sick are there and Jesus ministers to them, late into the night. Jesus' day was hectic and jammed with demands on his time and efforts. After a day and an evening like that, a lot of us would be ready to sleep a little later the next morning. But the Bible tells that the next morning, Jesus was up before daybreak and he went out alone to a solitary place to pray.

Every sermon, book, devotion, etc., says the same thing about that passage and it sounds like this: "If Jesus, the Son of God, prayed, how much more do we need to pray." And that is true. But let's ask some questions about Jesus and prayer. Let's consider who and what Jesus was. Jesus had the power to accomplish whatever He needed to accomplish, so He didn't need to pray for power or ability. Jesus knew the will of God so He didn't wonder "what" He should do. Jesus was sinless, so He didn't need forgiveness.

But then consider who we are. We pray because we need help or power or ability. We pray because we need direction, we need guidance. We pray for forgiveness because we've sinned. But Jesus didn't have those needs and He still made prayer a priority in His life.

So why did Jesus pray? Jesus prayed because He knew that prayer was an opportunity to draw close to One who loved Him like no other. He wanted to connect with the Father, to enjoy His presence, to experience that relational ntimacy. For Jesus, this was about relationship! That's why He prayed.

"Prayer is keeping company with God." -Clement of Alexandria (an early Church Father)

"Keeping company" with God is as important, if not more important, than prayer requests, although requests are not unimportant (when Jesus taught His followers the "Lord's Prayer," it contained requests).

There is an additional benefit beyond just enjoying and growing closer relationally. If we focus on just being with God, over time, it will transform us and consequently transform our requests. Just spending time with God, not making requests, getting to know God, helps me to line up my desires with God's.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

The fruit will grow, changes will come, if we remain attached to the vine. Our job is to remain attached, to "abide."

"To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. The closer we come to the heartbeat of God the more we see our need and the more we deisre to be confromed to Christ." -Foster

If I will pray with a heart to speak to Him honsetly and desire to hear Him and just be with Him, then God will change my desires so that I will begin to want what He wants.

Prayer is about a relationship, a heart connection with God. And in that connection, prayer changes us. He is changing us into what He created us to be.

There's a saying in the Recovery Movement. "All of us are formed, deformed, and transformed in relationships." Sadly most of us can only relate to the "formed" and "deformed" aspects. But it is in God's plan that transformation take place in the context of relationships. And in prayer, as we bring our incomplete selves, broken selves, and sinful selves to Him and lay it before Him and spend time with Him, He does something in us.

Prayer changes us so that we can help change the world.

"To say that 'prayer changes things' is not as close to the truth as saying, 'Prayer changes me, and then I change things.' God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person's inner nature." -Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, August 28

Perhaps God's greatest answer to prayer is not what God does for us, but what God does in us. God wants to change us, to conform us to the likeness of His Son.

Almighty God, Merciful Father, we need you, more than we even know. I am grateful that our words don't have to be perfect, grateful that You welcome the offering of our messy lives, grateful that You hear and understand the groanings of our souls. Kindle within us the flame of desire for Your presence, that we'd want it and need it more than food or water. Move us to a new level in prayer, move us to a "heart-connection." AMEN.