Today's scripture reading is from the book of Matthew chapter 6 verses 9 to 13 and may be found on page 960 in the Bible underneath the seat in front of you
Matthew 6 9 to 13 This then is how you should pray our Father in heaven Hallowed be your name Your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us today our daily bread Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and Lead us not into temptation But deliver us from the evil one This is the word of the Lord Thank you, Marine. Let's pray as we look at God's word together Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that it is truth That what you say to us in the Bible are Life-giving life-changing words We pray for the Spirit of God now that you will be our teacher and that we will see Jesus clearly in this passage today and We ask this in Jesus name. Oh, man Well, we have been talking about prayer in recent weeks and I began this series a few weeks ago with an observation and my observation was fairly simple if you haven't been with us for the last couple weeks this will catch you up very quickly the observation that I made a couple of weeks ago was that some of us understand Prayer very well Some of us know that the Bible talks about prayer a lot Some of us know that the Bible even promises that God hears us and answers our prayer But strangely enough some of the very people who know all those things do not pray Or if they pray they don't enjoy praying very much It's a burden rather than a blessing It's more of a duty than a delight And so in this series what I have tried to do is pose some possible Reasons why some of us who love Christ who follow after Jesus Who understand in our heads about the power of prayer why some of us do not pray or do not enjoy prayer very much I've suggested several reasons The first reason that I posed a couple of weeks ago is that if you're one who struggles with prayer Perhaps the reason is that your God is too distant That is your concept of God is that he is way too far off He's way too aloof and not really involved in your life doesn't really care deeply about you Last week we looked at a second Possible reason why some of you who understand prayer love God but do not pray Is that your prayers are too complicated And what I was saying last week is that perhaps you struggle with prayer because you've made prayer out to be far Harder than it's meant to be So if you missed one or both of those messages you can pick them up on Listen to them on our church website today. I want to go on to a possible third reason why Some people who believe in Jesus follow after Christ Understand the purpose of prayer and so on still do not pray or do not enjoy praying Reason number three is that it might be because your desires are too weak It could be that your desires are too weak. Do you remember a couple weeks ago? I shared a definition of prayer from the Westminster shorter catechism It's a document that we use here at UPC The question in the catechism is what is prayer and the answer that Westminster came up with says in part prayer Is an offering up of our desires unto God Now it went on to say some more things, but that's the essence of it The answer of the of what is prayer is that prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God You see the language of prayer is desire Your passions Your aspirations your hopes and your dreams are all the stuff of prayer When Jesus taught his disciples the Lord's Prayer which we heard read a little while ago His intention was not that we would just mindlessly Malf the words Our father in heaven. How it is your name Your kingdom come your will be done on earth and so on and so forth No, he gave us the Lord's prayer as a tool through which we could express our inmost desires and yearnings to God That's the purpose of it. That's why it's here in the book of Matthew So I want to say three things this morning Three things about desires first of all that they are valid Secondly that they will help you pray and third that they will find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ So that's our plan. Let's dive right into the first thing that I want us to learn from God's word today is that your desires are valid And some of you you need to know that That your desires are valid if you're a follower after Jesus Christ The Bible teaches you that you have holy good and righteous desires How can I demonstrate that to you? Well, I think I can take you to the book of Psalms For example in Psalm 37 The psalmist says to delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart Listen to that God's promise is that if you treasure Jesus if he is your delight Then God will satisfy or give you what your heart is longing for Psalm 103 says that God satisfies your desires with good things So that your youth is renewed like the Eagles And Psalm 145 says that God fulfills the desires of those who fear him He hears their cry and saves them Think with me about a couple of stories from the life of Christ and this will drill it down even further One of them I told you about last week It's in Matthew chapter 20 Jesus is going from Jericho to Jerusalem on the road And he's walking down and on the road as he's walking he comes up to two blind men And these two blind men are sitting there presumably they're just out there all the time waiting for something to happen And when they're told that Jesus Christ is coming down the road They stand up and they start shouting at the top of their voices Jesus son of David have mercy on us The crowd that's standing around tries to shush them. They say Be quiet, you know you guys don't need to be making such a ruckus, but they can't stop They can't keep quiet and so they shout out even more Jesus son of David have mercy on us Jesus hears their shouting he walks over to them He looks at them and this is what Jesus says to the two blind men what do you want me to do for you In other words What are your desires? Another story is in John chapter 5 is very similar This time Jesus is in Jerusalem And he goes over to a place known as the pool of Bethesda Bethesda means house of mercy or house of kindness And it was the practice of people back in that day to gather to congregate around the pool of Bethesda if they needed healing There was the common thought that there were magical or mystical powers in this pool and presumably if you Do the right things and hang around long enough You'll be healed by this water Well, there were tons of people hanging around the pool of Bethesda in John 5 when Jesus came by that way There were blind people there there were quadruplegic there There were people with terrible diseases there hoping for healing from the pool And so Jesus is there he sees all of these people, but he takes particular interest in this one man We're told that this one man is an invalid And he comes to this pool day after day he's been coming for 38 years Can you imagine that hoping that something good would happen to him and he would be healed Jesus sees that poor man lying there his body is all shriveled up. He can hardly move And do you know what Jesus says to him? He says do you want to get well Now why did Jesus ask such a ridiculous question some of us would think that's a ridiculous thing to ask Of course he wants to get well He's been coming to this pool for 38 years and Jesus your omniscient you know everything of course You know that he wants to get well And why would Jesus say to the two blind men? What do you want me to do for you? It's obvious that they're blind. It's obvious that they're crying out for sight So why would Jesus ask those questions? He asked those questions To help these men feel and own and express their yearnings to him
Just like Jesus says to you and to me every single day What do you want me to do for you? What do you need? Think of it every morning when you wake up It's like Jesus is asking you all over again another time. What do you want me to do for you today? What are you longing for? What's the daily bread for you that you want me to give you? See your desires are valid and Jesus wants to pull those desires out of you He wants you to see them and feel them and own them and then to express them to him You might say to to the father Father I long to be able to tell my wife about the things that I really care about and I long for her to really listen to me this time
Or father. I have a friend and I have tried to share my faith with her over and over again And she doesn't get it father. I want my friend to become a Christian Or you might say lord lord. I'm a new parent And I don't know what I'm doing. I'm tired and I'm lonely. Lord show me what love looks like toward this little baby Or you might say father I long to be more communicative with my teenager But when I'm there with him I just don't know what to say father That's my need that's my longing Or you might say lord I long to be more bold about my faith at work or at school Or lord there's an emptiness in my soul. I don't even know what I want. All I know is that I feel that you're very very far away I yearn to be more connected to you father help me with my doubts help me with my fears See friends, that's what Jesus wants to hear from you those kinds of desires Those kinds of longings that are there He wants you to own them Because their valid don't ignore your desires God wants you to identify them and to accept them Because they're valid Now Why is it important for you to know that because in the second place I want to show you from the Bible that your desires will help you pray If you will own them if you will validate them They will really help you pray and I'm talking to people who some of whom are having struggles with prayer Here is a key to knowing how to pray Your desires will help you pray some of you don't enjoy your prayer life because You're always praying for things that you think you ought to pray for Instead of things that you really want to pray for Can anybody relate to that? You know really that's the only problem I have with prayer lists Now some of you you love your prayer list and I admire you for it I have a hard time with prayer lists because sometimes I get to thinking okay These are the people these are the things I'm supposed to pray for but I don't really have a strong desire see That's my problem. It's not the problem of the list But sometimes I feel that I've got to pray for these things Instead of really feeling the desire for them and maybe you can relate to that Think about some of the people in the Bible who were real men and women of prayer My mind goes back to Genesis 32 to a man by the name of Jacob Do you remember this particular some of you remember this episode in the life of Jacob He had been away from home for some 14 years or so And he knew that his brother Esau was mad at him at least he thought so And he was on his way back home now with his wives and his family and his cattle and so on And he knew he was going to meet up with Esau and he was afraid of what Esau was going to do to him to get back at him in some way And so Jacob goes off by himself and he camps out by a river He stays overnight all by himself and it says that during the night he wrestles with a man And you and I know that that man is no ordinary man not a human being. It's an angel of the Lord It's very possibly Christ himself before his incarnation But he wrestles all night long with this angel of the Lord and the angel says to Jacob let me go for its It's daybreak the sun is coming up and Jacob says to the angel of the Lord I will not let you go unless you bless me That's my desire. I will not let you go unless you bless me when's the last time you said to God God, I'm not going to stop praying for this until you bless me
Last week I mentioned the prayer of Moses in Exodus chapter 33 Moses was a desperate man in that particular place in the Bible God had told him to lead the people of Israel up out of the Egypt and into the Promised Land and it was a time that was very very hard They had just built this golden calf and so in Exodus 33 Moses says to the to the Lord show me your glory Lord I can't lead these people to the Promised Land unless you show me your glory. I am desperate God. I am that desperate
The Psalms are full of the language of desire Read through the book of Psalms and you'll see what I'm talking about Psalm 3 says a rise O Lord deliver me O my God strike all my enemies on the jaw break the teeth of the wicked Talk about unvarnished desire Psalm 6 my soul is in anguish how long O Lord how long turn O Lord and deliver me save me because of your unfailing love I am worn out from groaning all night long I flood my bed with weeping and I drench my couch with tears Some of you know those emotions Psalm 42 I say to God my rock why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning oppressed by the enemy my bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me saying to me all day long Where is your God? Do any of you feel at school or at work on the college campus considered labeled branded a fool a stupid person because you believe in Jesus. That's what he's giving voice to He's desiring God's empathy and support in a very hard place the prophets were men of great desire in prayer For example, the prophet Daniel one time found out that the city of Jerusalem the city that he loved would be in ruins for 70 years And so we're told in Daniel 9 that Daniel turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition in fasting and in sack cloth and ashes We're told this about the prophet Jeremiah also In Jeremiah 9 he says oh that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears I would weep day and night for the slain of my people The Apostle Paul was a man who expressed his wants often in prayer And one of the once one of his desires was the spiritual formation of the people that he loved the people that he knew in various towns and cities We're told in the book of Galatians that one time Paul felt like he was in the pains of childbirth Until Christ would be formed in the people that he knew and loved and so his prayers came out of this Enormous desire that he see people formed into the image of Christ We're told that he said to the Ephesians. I've never stopped remembering you in my prayers He told the Colossians I have not stopped asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will He told the Thessalonians we constantly pray for you that our God may count you worthy of his calling. How could Paul Spin so much of his time in prayer It's because he really desired that people's lives be changed That was one of his yearnings, you know, Jesus prayed with desire In Hebrews chapter 5 we're told that during the days of Jesus's life on earth He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death So what we've done is do a brief survey here of all of these people in the Bible Who were men and women of prayer because they were men and women of desire They owned their desires and they lifted those up and told God about them Now I want you to know that not all the desires expressed as prayers in the Bible are positive desires For example, do you know the name Elijah? Elijah was a prophet back in the Old Testament And we're told in first Kings 19 that Elijah was very depressed one time He was running away from Queen Jezebel who wanted to kill him And he was so spiritually So spiritually deserted felt so discouraged so depressed that he ran off by himself into the desert and sat down underneath a tree And we're told what he prayed He prayed these words. He said God I've had enough It's throwing the towel time Lord I've had enough Lord take my life. I'm no better than my ancestors
So see he was praying what maybe we would call a a negative desire But he was giving it to God anyway Another example of that is Job the whole book of Job is filled with prayers of desire from Job that we would consider negative emotions Much of Job is a protest against what Job perceived as God's injustice And in one particular place in Job 10 Job says to God Lord why did you bring me into the world? I wish I'd died before any eye saw me
Furthermore, I want you to know that God doesn't always give us what we desire Just because we pray out of a desire doesn't mean that he's promised to say yes to everything we want Sometimes he says no You remember Paul's thorn in the flesh We don't know exactly what it was some people theorized that it was a A terrible eye disease, but whatever it was Paul had this thorn in the flesh that bothered him and plagued him all the time And we're told in second Corinthians that he prayed three times over and over and over again God take it away I'm sick of it Lord. I don't want this thing in my life anymore It is nothing but a handicap for me God take it away. That's my earnest desire. That's my daily bread. I want you to take it and God said no God said Paul. Sorry My grace is going to be sufficient for you and my power is going to be made perfect in your weakness so The point I'm trying to make is that all these people whether their desires were positive or negative ones whether God said yes or no to the desire The point is that they were offering up their desires to God They were praying unedited prayers They were praying their emotions Whether you would argue that they were appropriate or inappropriate doesn't matter. God says it's okay. Give it to me I love what Ian Bounds had to say one time he wrote a lot of books on prayer And he wrote this he said without desire prayer is a meaningless mumble of words Such perfunctory formal praying with no heart no feeling no real desire accompanying it is to be shunned Like a pestilence It's exercises a waste of precious time and from it no real blessing accrues Strong desires make strong prayers. There can be no true praying Without desire now. I started thinking about this in my life and for you as well And I began to ask the question why do some of us pray without desire Why does prayer become as bound said perfunctory and formal Sometimes I think I put the angels to sleep when I pray frankly Why do we do that what's missing? Well, I can think of at least two reasons why um We settle into a habit of boring prayers Desireless prayers one reason is somewhere along the way some of us picked up the idea that our desires are evil That if we want something that proves that it's not good Have you ever been exposed to that teaching? It's out there in the Christian church If you wanted it's bad God only gives you bad desires Things that are a burden to you Um, we have a little grandson named ebbin And whenever our daughter brings the kids to visit us many times ebbin first words out of his mouth are Do you have any gifts for me? First words out of it. Here he is. We haven't seen him in months. Do you have something for me? You have a toy for me and of course his mom our daughter Rebecca jumps in says oh no no now now Ebbin you shouldn't want things like that you should just want your grandparents Right, I mean we get that we get that and that's an important lesson for a kid to learn not to You know wait a little while to ask for presents at least At least show a little affection for the person first Before you want the gift, but I wonder I'll really do wonder if over and over and over again We've heard so many times good Christians don't say did you get me anything Good Christians are content with what they have Good Christians don't want things. They're just happy. They have anything at all And maybe we hear that message so often that we begin to think wow, I want this it must be bad I'm gonna squelch it. I'm not gonna own it I think there's something to that go back to Psalm 3 that I quoted earlier or rise oh lord deliver me Oh my god strike my enemies on the jaw and one of us may say now now now now calm down David Don't raise your voice to God Control yourself David. Don't you know you're supposed to love your enemies? See God doesn't do that He says I want to know what you desire what do you want me to do for you See, it's quite possible that some of you have put a lid on your desires in prayer Because you thought they were bad Now look are some desires evil of course. I mean, that's a whole another sermon. Sometimes I want to cuss somebody out Sometimes I want my neighbor's new car So yeah, there are things that we should avoid Paul tells Timothy to flee the evil desires of youth We know that But listen now that you're a child of God you have the Holy Spirit inside you Romans 8 5 says that you're you desire the things of God You have a new orientation to please God and to seek his kingdom you have good and godly passions and goals You care about the things of God So listen to your desires and tell God about them even if they're bad desires get this even if they're bad desires Sometimes there are desires underneath the desires That you need to dive down into and discover and then own them and express them to the Lord So one reason why we pray without desire maybe you believe your desires are all evil But there's a second reason a second reason why some of you don't pray your desires And it is this you have taken those desires To counterfeit gods God's with a little G Now here's what I'm talking about what I mean is that instead of going to God and asking him to give you the desires of your heart You have settled for a mere pittance of satisfaction from some person or something that you think will satisfy you Example Let's say that you desire significance you desire a sense of significance in your life And you think that you can find significance by being successful at your job Or and significance is a good desire. There's nothing wrong with that at all It's planted in us as human beings Or you think you live in east Orlando and one of the things that east Orlandoans consider as success is to have a nice home A manicured lawn a boat out in the Out in the driveway a couple of nice cars A home and a yard that's the envy of the gated community And that's your view of significance Well, let me ask you what you're going to do when you get laid off When the income dries up when you retire and aren't making that money anymore Where's significance going to come from then? Or suppose that you desire love love is a great desire. It's here within us as human beings But if your ultimate source of love comes from another human being What are you going to do when that person dumps you? Suppose you think that you can find love by getting the attention of the opposite sex Or you can find love by getting people to like you saying what you think they want you to say Acting like you think they want you to act. What's going to happen when people don't respond to you anymore favorably See your desires for significance for love for glory for peace for joy. They're all good desires Don't want to say bad things about those at all But no job no person no accomplishment no recognition on earth will fully give you what you're longing for only Relationship with God will truly satisfy And if you're willing now look let me say this with all of all respect But very very important thing that you get this if you're willing To trade God in for something that will only satisfy you for a little while Or that will only give you a smidgen of what you need That's sad You're to be pitted Nobody has expressed that any better than cs Lewis He wrote an essay one time called the weight of glory and I want you to give real attention to what Lewis says here He says it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak We're half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition When infinite joy is offered us like an ignorant child who wants to go on making Mud pies in Islam because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea We are far too easily please
What he's saying let me use a different analogy What Lewis is saying is that some of us Are content with studying a map of the Atlantic Ocean Instead of going to the beach and walking in the waves And getting down in the sand You're just looking at a map and you're calling that satisfaction Or some of us are fine Using a different image some of us are just fine idiot McDonald's We don't have any McDonald's managers here. I hope When in your pocket is a gift card for the Outback Steakhouse
See God promises you in the Bible that he will satisfy your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the Eagles He promises to fulfill the desires of those who fear him So are you going to ignore that and turn to these lesser gods When you could take your desires to God and find real satisfaction Do you respect yourself that little are you that easily pleased That you'd rather worship a counterfeit God when you've got the real thing saying Here There are pleasures at my right hand forever me which brings me to the last thing I want to say Your desires find their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus We've seen this morning that your desires are valid God says own them find out what they are and then pray them But always know that your desires will find their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus one time Jesus met a woman at the well In Samaria this story is in John chapter 4 This woman had a deep desire If you know the story you know what I'm talking about she had a deep desire to be loved to be cherished to be wanted and to be pursued So you know what she did with that desire she took that desire to A counterfeit God she had multiple affairs She'd had five husbands and now she was living with a new lover And she was thinking maybe just maybe this time it's going to work Maybe I've got the man of my dreams But Jesus knew better he said to the woman You know everybody who drinks this water will be thirsty again But the water that I'm going to give him it'll he'll never thirst And the woman knew that he wasn't talking about water He was talking about her soul And her desires and what Jesus could do with those desires See if you take your desires to anything or anyone but Jesus eventually you're going to be disappointed Your desires ultimately point you to Jesus Christ the one who will love you with And everlasting love so friends accept your desires Pray your desires and let him bind you to the one who As the Christmas Carol tells us is the did as the dear desire of all nations The joy of every longing heart Let's pray Father, thank you for prayer. Thank you for this wonderful gift you've given us to be able to pray to you And offer up our desires to you We really we understand that sometimes our desires come from misplaced affections Sometimes they come from unrealistic hopes But Lord there are desires and you said Bring them bring them on I pray, Father, that you'll teach us to be a congregation of people who boldly pray Even who say we won't let you go until you bless us Lord um and when you say no like you said no to Paul help us to remember that Eventually all desires point us to Jesus anyway and there's no true ultimate fulfillment in Anything we have here on earth. It's all Found in you And Lord I pray that if there be anyone here today who has not yet found that ultimate fulfillment in Christ That today might be the day they cry out to you and say Lord give me the desires of my heart And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen