Prayer

Acts 4:23-31Sunday 25th January

Graeme Goldsworthy

Tim Chester

Bill Hybels

“This book is not about my experience of prayer. I am not an exemplary prayer”

“I know that... I hardly qualify to undertake this study”

“Prayer has not always been my strong suit. For many years... I knew more about prayer than I ever practiced in my own life”

“This book is not about my experience of prayer. I am not an exemplary prayer”

“I know that... I hardly qualify to undertake this study”

“Prayer has not always been my strong suit. For many years... I knew more about prayer than I ever practiced in my own life”

“What is both surprising and depressing is the sheer prayerlessness that characterizes so much of the Western church”

Don A Carson

Time and PlaceChoreography

Structured PrayingMaking a List

When Praying is Boring and Difficult

“The task of Christian living stems from the grace of God’s actions for us in Christ” Graeme Goldsworthy

SpurgeonConsidered two hours per day in prayer normal

Jesus“One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God” Luke 6:12

“You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” James 4:2-3

1. God is Sovereign

“Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

Isaiah 64:8

2. God listens to our prayers

Billy Bray 1794 – 1864

“I must go and talk to the Father about it”

“It is the nature of God from all eternity that speaking characterizes the communication within the trinity” Graeme Goldsworthy

“You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David...” Acts 4:25

Speaking to God

Our response to God as He speaks to us

“Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’” Galatians 4:6

3. God’s will shapes our prayers‘Our response to God as He speaks to us’

“You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” James 4:2-3

1. God is Sovereign

2. God listens to our prayers

3. God’s will shapes our prayers

Conclusions

“Jesus got up early to pray, so how much more do we need to get up early to pray” = “He did it, therefore we ought to” – missing the grace of God in the gospel

“He did it for us because we are unable to do it as we ought”