Prayer Series Sermon Two - "Conversing with God" (Matthew 7:7-11)

1. Question – What do you find hardest about prayer?

2. Prayer – a Conversation

It’s best to keep this as simple as possible and see prayer as a conversation. Basically, prayer is turning one’s heart and mind toward God, and then beginning a conversation. This conversation would be much like the conversation we would have with a trusted friend, except that, as we are communicating with our Creator and Saviour, we would speak with a much greater sense of thankfulness, devotion and faith.

Rosalind Rinker writes: "Prayer is the expression of the human heart in conversation with God" (pg. 23). Our mind is ticking over all the time, and life continually brings its challenges, so we should pray as often as we can, wherever we can, and certainly whenever we feel the need. Keith McClellan (in “Prayer Therapy”) wrote: "Prayer begins in a restless heart. Listen to its stirring".

Just like a conversation we would have with a close friend, where there is no need to impress, we don’t have to be eloquent or find all the right words, rather just talk from the heart and then listen. Indeed, sometimes the issues are so deep … words won’t come at all, yet even silence in the confidence of God’s presence will surely still help us. We can be encouraged by the words of Paul here who writes: "God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter! [God’s Spirit] does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans" (from “The Message” version of Romans 8:26-27).

As we begin to relax in this trustful appreciation of God’s company, we can allow God’s Spirit to lead us into our own verbal expressions. Yet we will still need to remember that any real conversation involves a two-way street and therefore requires as much hearing as speaking. We need to become aware of ways in which God can reveal to us things that we didn’t previously know or understand. Our minds should be expectantly awaiting new insight to emerge. Suddenly this overwhelmingly difficult problem has a new solution that was previously unthought of. Conversing with God can change us from people who know about God into people who experience God.

3. Ten Reasons to Pray

(a) WHO GOD IS – Because God loves and cares for us, is on our side, is our personal cheer squad, is committed to our welfare, even knows us better than we know ourselves, values us, and desires the best for us. Indeed, God is already working in our best interests from the moment we turn to him. Because God is God, God is constantly available to us. God, in his enormity, can also wear easily our expressions of confusion, frustration and anger, helping us process our issues toward understanding and growth.

(b) RELATIONSHIP BUILDING – To develop, strengthen and deepen our relationship with God! This is because, just like human to human relationships, we can’t get to know someone without having communication or interaction with them! Prayer allows us to express our love and commitment to God, and in return discover that our life has meaning and purpose. Even when the nature of God’s answer isn’t evident, and we still have the same issue or pressure concerning us, our relationship with God has grown such that we have the capacity to wait.

(c) COMPANIONSHIP – To remind ourselves that we are not alone. This removes the feeling of having to deal with life’s difficulties on our own. Isolation, and the anxiety and depression this produces, can be addressed by understanding that there is a caring presence ready to hear about one’s plight. This tends to moderate our human tendency to worry.

(d) REASSURANCE – We can also talk to God about those things, especially our deepest fears, that we find too hard to talk to anyone else about, knowing that this will help us be more open and honest with other people in the future. We can do this because God already knows about this fear that tends to debilitate us, also knows from where it derives, and wants to deliver us through it and from it.

(e) CHANGE – Prayer can make a positive difference in the present dynamics of our lives and bring about much better outcomes than currently seem possible. Even what seems impossible (either very personally or on an international scale) may just come to be, where this lines up with God’s purposes. The tangled webs and problems of life, together with our disappointments and failures, can be transformed in the creative and healing hands of God. When the reality of our situation is just that – the reality (which likely won’t change a whole lot), it can be how we feel about this and how we react to it that can be refreshed through the practice of prayer.

(f) INSIGHT – God is the fount of all wisdom. Abraham Lincoln wrote: "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day". In times where we need direction and new insight into the way forward, especially when we are at our wits end, God says to us as he said to Jeremiah (33:2-3) long ago: "Thus says the Lord … Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known". All significant decisions we need to make should be referred to God for guidance and confirmation.

(g) THANKFULNESS – Expressing our thankfulness to God takes us out of ourselves, and helps us to realise that God is indeed active in and around our lives, in our community and around the whole world, desiring to bring change and renewal. This takes the focus off ourselves and on to the bigger picture. We would particularly express our thanks for what Jesus has done, and also the availability of the Holy Spirit to us (to speak when we cannot).

(h) FORGIVENESS – To seek and receive forgiveness – for those things we’ve done that we shouldn’t have done, and for those things that we should’ve done that we haven’t done. This will allow us to access God’s great pool of mercy, and continue unimpeded on our growthful journey of following Jesus.

(i) CHARACTER BUILDING – In spending time conversing with God, we can’t help but be transformed, with some of the rough edges being rubbed away, and some of those negative traits being dealt with. We can grow some of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-3) and more easily adopt the better attitudes (‘beattitudes’ of Matt 5:3-12), thus becoming more like Jesus. In prayer we invite God to do deep transforming and igniting work in our life.

(j) WITNESS – To testify to God’s existence and relevance to all those who notice. Prayer shows where we stand, and that there is a much greater power available to us than is sometimes accepted. Prayer also tends to transform the mind toward more positive assessments of other people (and their potential through Jesus).

4. Text & Context

The “Ask, Search, Knock” verses (7 & 8) are very powerful and cast a very high expectation upon prayer. There will be remarkable results, what seems lost will be recovered, and doors that seem firmly closed will fly open. This is magnificent news for those praying, because previously unthought of outcomes could be possible. For example, both Kelsey and my sister-in-law Anne got their phones returned after they were lost when there was real fear they would never be seen again.

James understood the potential of prayer when he wrote: You do not have, because you do not ask (4:2c). Of course James understood the necessity of asking for the right things with the right motives as he continued: You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures (4:3). The Matthew 7 text before us says “ask”, but doesn’t say “ask for anything”! To get what is meant here, we have to backtrack a bit, and see that the context demands first aligning ourselves with God’s Kingdom agenda.

This ‘asking, searching & knocking’ would first need to line up with God’s will and purposes for it to be answered in the affirmative. For instance in the Lord’s model prayer cited in the previous chapter we are taught to pray: Your [that is, God’s] Kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (6:10). Then we are advised to store up “treasures in heaven” rather than “treasures on earth” (6:19-21). And then Jesus teaches about not worrying about little things, but that when one strives first for the Kingdom of God, all of life’s other true needs will follow (6:25-34).

So therefore this “ask, search, knock” type praying would likely begin with seeking to discern what should be requested, rather than simply bringing our own wish-list. This is important because often we don’t really know what it is that we truly need … the answer to our current situation has proven to be a little illusive. Also, as said earlier, prayer should never be allowed to become entirely self-focussed, but recognise and resonate with the bigger picture in which we function (and nothing is bigger than the health and welfare needs of the people in so many impoverished countries around the world; and nothing is bigger than the need for people in our neighbourhoods to know and experience Jesus).

Also this praying would have to be a consistent pursuit, and not spasmodic just when personal need arises. The three verbs here are ‘present imperative actives’, indicating that what is required is regular ongoing prayer activity – “ask and keep asking, search and keep searching, knock and keep knocking”. This is not to harass God, nor wear God down, nor to bargain with God, but rather to stay continually in the process of conversation. God should not be treated like a ‘butler’ who you can wave away when unwanted and ring a bell whenever you want attention!

Then there would need to be a close connection between our prayer-life and our general lifestyle. Prayer should not be little spiritual watershed moments amidst a life lived for itself in disconnection with God and others. Rather prayer is life and life is prayer, where even the simplest aspects of daily life can be seen with spiritual significance. Philip Yancey quotes an old ancient definition of prayer as simply: "keeping company with God". This means that all our daily observations, interactions and experiences (those that bring joy and bring sorrow) are automatically part of our prayer-life. As we encounter the happenings of the day, so does God in partnership with us!

Verses 9-11 use the analogy of good wise ideal parenting to show how God would only bring helpful things to those people trusting in him, which is the case even when the answer to our prayers is very different to what we envisaged or preferred. God doesn’t bring counterfeit blessings, only the real thing, eg. the “stone” referred to as a possible substitute for bread … this could have been a limestone readily found on the local seashore about the same shape and colour as the common little bread loaf … yet of course of no value as food. God just would not do this! God, like a good parent, will not put harm (depicted as a dangerous snake) in our path when our real need is already known.

5. Conclusion

So, as prayer is an ongoing conversation with God, we have to be prepared to discern what we should be asking for as we pray, and also open to receive an answer that is very different to where we began. The more we are listening as we pray, and the more expectant we are that God will respond in the best possible way, the more ready we will be to recognise God’s response. God may not answer with what we wanted or when we wanted it, but rather with what is in our long-term best interest and through which we can fulfil the role in the world God has for us.

How might we want to respond to this prayer series? How might we better discover our individual and collective roles in God’s world? Some places to start might be to:

· read a book on prayer and put it into practice, or
· find another two people and form a prayer triplet, or
· organise a prayer walk around our neighbourhood, or
· join our Monday morning prayer group or one of our small study groups (when they restart for the year), or
· volunteer our home for a special purpose prayer meeting.

May the conversation continue.