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Introduction:
As we conclude our focus on prayer, we want to apply what we have
learned. As we examine the kinds of prayers, we will incorporate
some songs as well as some prayers that specifically correspond
with aspects of prayer we are studying. In this lesson, we will
divide prayer into three kinds. We will examine the prayer of
Adoration, of Confession and of Supplication. Discussion: I.
The Prayer of Adoration A.
“Blessed are You, Lord God of Israel, our Father, forever
and ever. Yours O Lord, is the greatness, the power and the glory,
the victory and the majesty; for all that is in heaven and in
earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and You are exalted
as head over all. Both riches and honor come from You, and You
reign over all. In Your hand is power and might; in Your hand it
is to make great and to give strength to all. Now therefore, our
God, we thank You and praise Your glorious name. But who am I, and
who are my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as
this? For all things come from You, and of Your own we have given
You” (I
Chronicles 29:10-15). B.
Adoration is not a duty to check off our worship list.
Adoration is the natural response to God from His child who knows
how truly awesome, amazing and all-mighty He is. God is worthy of
adoration as the elders in Revelation
4:9-11 demonstrated. Why is He worthy? Because He is the
Holy God. Because He is the powerful Creator. Because He is the
righteous Judge. Because He is the loving Redeemer. Because He is
our merciful Benefactor. Because He is, as Paul said in I
Timothy 1:17, “the King eternal, immortal,
invisible...God who alone is wise.” C.
We typically subdivide adoration into thanksgiving and
praise. Praise is honoring God for what He is and what He can do.
Thanksgiving is acknowledging God for what He has done or for what
we are absolutely convinced He is going to do. To illustrate the
difference. We praise God because He is merciful and His
lovingkindness endures forever. We thank God because in His mercy
He sent His Son to die for us as the sacrifice that washes our
sins away. D.
We could take a great deal of time discussing all the
reasons we need to adore God in prayer. However, I want us to
especially note the second most important reason. The first reason
is, of course, we praise God because He deserves it (cf.
Psalm
96:8). The second most important reason is that we need to
adore God in order to give us the proper perspective. Look at
David’s perspective in that prayer of adoration from I
Chronicles 29. It gives us the proper perspective on who
God is and who we are. It gives us the proper perspective on our
relationship with God. Finally, because most of us spend most of
our prayer time in supplication, asking for things, we spend most
of our time thinking about what God has not done for us yet.
Adoration gives us the proper perspective on what God has already
done for us as we count our blessings. E.
Allow me to offer you some advice for offering prayers of
adoration. First, you must actually adore God. You must love Him
and realize how great He is. You can only do that through Bible
study. When you actually turn to praise and thank God, do not
simply focus your mind on the material, recognize the spiritual
blessings as well. Your house and car are great, but they will
perish in the end. Forgiveness in Christ is greater and will go
with you to judgment. Additionally, be specific. Too often our
thanksgiving in prayer is limited to, “Thank you for our many
physical and spiritual blessings.” Which ones? List them. I love
listening to children pray, because they can get specific and they
can be thorough. Have you ever heard a little child thank God for
their house, their bed, their doll, their teddy bear, their Mommy
and Daddy, their grandparents, their brothers and sisters, their
friend Susie, Billie, Cody, Bailey, Liam, … Perhaps we can learn
from them. But for all the advice I can give you, the best piece
of advice to help you adore God in prayer is just simply to do it.
Praise God. Thank God. Honor God. Bless God. Adore God. II.
The Prayer of Confession A.
“O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant
and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His
commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done
wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from your precepts and
Your judgment. Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets,
who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our
fathers and all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness
belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day…O
Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and
our fathers because we have sinned against You. To the Lord our
God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against
Him. We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in
His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets…O
my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our
desolations, and the city which is called by Your name; for we do
not present our supplications before You because of our righteous
deeds, but because of Your great mercies. O Lord, hear! O Lord,
forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake,
my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name” (Daniel
9:4-19). B.
Wow, what a confession. The Greek word translated
“confess” (homologeo) literally means “same word.” That is, it means we are
saying the same thing as someone else. In the case of spiritual
issues, confession means to say the same thing about something
that God does. When we make the good confession about Jesus, we
are saying that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who died and
was resurrected. We are saying the same thing about Him that the
Father does. When we confess our sins, we are to say the same
things about our sins that God does. This corresponds
interestingly with repentance. Repentance literally means to think
through again. True confession follows true repentance. In other
words, we have, through our actions, said one thing about sin. We
have said that it is alright. It is minor. It is justifiable. It
is fun. However, having thought through these sins again, we come
to see things differently. Then we begin to say about sin the same
thing that God does. Finally, we ask God for forgiveness. However,
we do so as Daniel did, not because we deserve it through our
righteous deeds. Rather, we do so because of God’s great
mercies. C.
If we are going to say the same thing about sin that God
does, what are we going to say? Think about Daniel’s prayer. We
are not going to pull any punches. We are not going to mitigate.
We are not going to qualify. We are not going to justify. We are
not going to soften. We are not going to blame. Allow me to ask
you. Don’t you get tired of your kids or your spouse coming to
you and saying, “I am sorry I did such and such but when you do
that I just have a hard time stopping myself.”? If we get tired
of that sorry kind of weak confession and apology, don’t you
think God gets tired of it too? If we are going to confess, then
let’s really confess. Let’s say about our sins what God really
says about it. We must understand sin is not a mistake. It is not
bad judgment. It is not an indiscretion. It is not a character
flaw. It is wicked rebellion against God that cannot be justified
no matter our circumstances. D.
Allow me to offer you some prayer advice as you turn to God
to confess your sins. First, be honest with yourself and with God.
If you took the Lord’s name in vain, do not confess to a slip of
the tongue, confess to blasphemy. If you lusted, do not confess to
wandering eyes, confess to adultery in your heart. Second, be
specific. I do not know what your prayers of confession at home
are like. However, in the assembly, our prayers of confession are
usually limited to, “Father, please forgive us of our sins.”
If the prayer is really into oratory, he will pray, “Father
forgive us of our sins whether they be sins of omission or
commission.” We do need to be specific. Why? I can tell you from
personal experience of the time it dawned on me that I prayed
every night for my sins to be forgiven, but rarely stopped to
consider what I really needed forgiveness for. Because I had not
thought about that, I had never thought about what I was going to
do not to commit those same sins the next day. This leads to our
next piece of advice. According to Proverbs
28:13, confession only does us any good if we forsake the
sin. Confess it because you are giving it up. Finally, remember
what Jesus said in His model prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as
we forgive our debtors.” If we are not willing to forgive those
who confess to us, we might as well not even try confessing to
God. E.
David said, “Blessed is he whose transgression is
forgiven, whose sin is covered” (Psalm
32:1). What a privilege God has given us in confession. III.
The Prayer of Supplication A.
“O Lord God of Israel, the one who dwells between the
cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the
earth. You have made heaven and earth. Incline Your ear, O Lord,
and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of
Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. Truly,
Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their
lands, and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not
gods, but the work of men’s hands—wood and stone. Therefore
they destroyed them. Now therefore, O Lord our God, I pray, save
us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that
You are the Lord God, You alone” (II
Kings 19:15-19). B.
I can understand why the almighty God allows us to come
into His presence and adore Him. I can understand why the holy God
allows us to come into His presence and confess how far short of
His holiness we are. What amazes me is that this same holy,
almighty God allows us to come into His presence and request Him
to use His might on our behalf. Even more than that, I am amazed
that He allows us to come into His presence as though we have some
special connection with Him and ask Him to use His might on behalf
of others. C.
Matthew
7:7-11
is an absolutely phenomenal passage. “Ask, and it will be given
to you.” Why? Because our God is a good Father who wants to give
good gifts to His children. The passage concludes saying, “If
you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give
good things to those who ask Him!” God wants to bless us, but
many of His blessings are conditional on asking. James
4:2 said that many do not receive blessings simply because
they do not ask. For instance, God wants to give us wisdom, but we
have to ask (James
1:5). God wants to forgive us, but we have to ask (I
John 1:9). How many of God’s gifts go unopened because
God’s children simply did not ask? D.
Allow me to offer some advice as we turn to God to petition
Him on our own behalf or intercede on another’s behalf. First, James
4:3 demonstrates that we must not be selfish. When we make
a request, we need to consider why we are asking. The ultimate
goal of all our requests must be for the benefit of serving others
and glorifying God. Be specific. First, because most of our
general prayers really cannot be prayed with any kind of faith.
Consider, “Lord, heal the sick the world over.” While I am
certain we all believe God can do that, do any of us really
believe He will? Of course not. In fact, just the opposite, most
of us believe that He won’t because we know that is just not how
He works. Further, we must learn to be observant. If we are going
to intercede for others, we have to pay attention to what are
their needs. Finally, as we have said repeatedly, be willing to
offer yourself as part of the answer to your prayer. E.
Whatever we do, we must never take the privilege of
supplication for granted. We can cast our cares on God because He
cares for us (I
Peter 5:7). We, however, do not deserve any of this.
Therefore, we must follow Paul’s advice in Philippians
4:6, letting our requests be made known to God with
thanksgiving. Never forget to take this prayer back full circle to
where we began with adoration and thanksgiving. Conclusion: Indeed, prayer is the greatest privilege the Father offers us. We must remember that it is not a toy. We must never approach it rashly. However, we can be thankful that through the blessing of Jesus’ Christ death, we are allowed to come into the presence of God. As the Hebrew writer exhorts us, let us always draw near to God and pray (Hebrews 10:19-22).
Glory
to God in the church by Christ Jesus
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