Title: PRAYING WITH CONFIDENCE

Focus: We may pray with great confidence to our heavenly Father.

Function: To move the people to pray with deep trust by embracing the character and majesty of God.

Text: Matthew 7:7-12

Confession: Lord’s Day 46

 

INTRODUCTION

            Our prayers are draped with clarity as well as mystery. It’s clear from Scripture, for example, that God desires to be prayed to. God commands, calls, directs us to pray to him—and to do so with confidence. Says the apostle Paul: (Phil. 4:6) “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

 

But our confidence gets “busted” when we face the mystery of unanswered prayers. How do you explain, for example, the seemingly untimely death of a cancer patient (say a 33 year old mother of 3 young children), whose husband and family members prayed so fervently for healing? Surely, we all have struggled with the mystery and pain of unanswered prayer. And sometimes, such struggles may lead to a lack of confidence in praying to our heavenly Father.

 

If that’s the case with you, I invite you listen up and take note of the insights found in Matthew 7, and also in Lord’s Day 46. Tonight, the Lord is moving us to pray with deep trust by considering and embracing the character and majesty of God. As a result, I declare boldly that we may pray with great confidence to our heavenly Father.

 

SOME INSIGHTS FROM LD. 46

            The Lord Jesus has taught his disciples to approach God in prayer by giving us a framework; that framework is called “the Lord’s Prayer.” Jesus teaches us to look up and to reach out to God by addressing him as “Our Father in heaven.” Now stop. Ask yourself, “Why did Jesus command us to call God ‘our Father’?” The answer to that question gives us three insights that boost our confidence as we pray. There is the insight of

• Awe: Listen to the insightful voice of Christians in the past: “At the very beginning of our prayer Christ wants to kindle in us what is basic to our prayer—the child-like awe…that God through Christ has become our Father.” This is awesome: we may call God “abba,” Father! Our relationship with God is one of Father-child. The Creator of the universe, the God of all power—is our Father. That’s awesome.

            Another insight related to approaching God as our heavenly Father is the insight of

• Trust:  Listen again to the insightful voice of Christians in the past: “At the very beginning of our prayer Christ wants to kindle in us what is basic to our prayer—the childlike…trust that God through Christ has become our Father.”

A number of weeks ago, I built a raft for the ducks and geese in the pond near our house. For two weeks we looked for the ducks and geese to sit and loaf on the raft. They swam by it, around it, and basically ignored it. Then, one morning, we woke up, looked out of the window, and saw ducks sitting on the raft. And now we see them every day enjoying their float. It took them at least three weeks to trust that man-made contraption.

Here’s the good news:

a child of God may approach God in prayer with deep trust. There is no need to pitter-patter or tip-toe around God. He is our heavenly Father. Fully trustworthy!

 

            Insight no. three is just as important as the insight of awe and trust. I’m talking about

• Gratitude: Again, listen to the insightful voice of Christians in the past: “At the very beginning of our prayer Christ wants to kindle in us what is basic to our prayer—the childlike awe and trust that God through Christ has become our Father.” We may approach God as our Father in heaven because of what God—in Christ—has done for us. Jesus is the way to the Father; Jesus is our intercessor, advocate, mediator to the Father. It is through Jesus that God has adopted us as his sons and daughters. Thus, thankfulness is in order. Through Christ, we may voice our requests to God and know that he will respond to us as our heavenly Father. Cool! What a confidence booster!

 

ENTERING THE TEXT

            The Lord Jesus further boosts our confidence. Speaking to his disciples and a large crowd, the Lord Jesus invites us to pray to God by relaying our fears and calming our hearts.  Does God hear my prayers or does God only listen to super Christians or certain kinds of people? Can I really trust God to listen to my voice and respond to my requests? Jesus answers “Yes!” And here’s how the answer comes to us:

 

            First, take a look at the structure of the text, or at the way the Lord Jesus speaks to us: He makes use of a step or stairs formula. For example, when first, second, and third place Olympic finalists receive their medals, they climb the stairs of a podium from one side. They take their respective position. They receive their medal, and leave the podium at the other side by stepping down the stairs. Now listen to Jesus: Step one: “Ask and it will be given to you.” Step two: “Seek and you will find.” Step three: “Knock and the door will be opened to you.”

 

Now we get to the top, the podium itself. Listen: “For everyone who….” Here we are at the heart, the center of the step formula. Here is where the spotlight rests. Here’s where Jesus places all the emphasis: “For everyone who….”

And now we go down the stairs or steps moving away from the podium: “For everyone who asks (top step) receives.” “He who seeks (middle step) finds.” “And to him who knocks, (bottom step) the door will be opened.”

 

Do you see what Jesus is doing by way of this step formula structure or approach? In a very subtle way the Lord Jesus answers the nagging question by many of the people who wonder if God will consider their prayers. And by placing at the top of the podium—at the very center the unequivocal “For everyone one who….”, Jesus says “Yes!” God considers the prayers of anyone and everyone who asks, seeks, and knocks—who appeals to our heavenly Father. What a confidence booster this is!

            Secondly, take a look at the nature of prayer. Jesus teaches us that prayer is an ongoing activity that calls for asking (verbalizing our requests, using our tongue). Prayer, however, also involves a seeking (using spiritual discernment, a patient waiting, sometimes diligent searching out God’s will for us).

Prayer also involves responding to windows and revolving doors of opportunities; when these doors and windows come our way we do well to knock on God’s door, to pray to him for wisdom, guidance and direction. Obedience. (Really, the knocking points to willingness to go where God wants us to be). And God will make it clear to us in due time whether these windows and doors are for us to enter through or not.

Prayer, then, calls for an engagement of the tongue (ask); spiritual discernment of the mind (seek); and a passionate response from the heart (knock). Such is the nature of prayer.

 

Thirdly, the Lord Jesus further boosts our confidence in prayer by pointing to a powerful motivation. Listen to Jesus’ rhetorical questions: “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” (Implied answer: of course, no one!). “Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?” (Implied answer: no one!). “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Bingo! There’s the punch of application which boosts our confidence in prayer.

 

Jesus seeks to motivate us in prayer by contrasting the imperfect, sin-spoiled, selfishly hampered characteristics that are part of our human nature with God’s perfect, sinless, selfless characteristics that are part of his divine nature. If imperfect earthly fathers seek the good of their children, how much more will our good and perfect and most loving heavenly Father seek the good of his children and respond to their prayers! You see? We may pray with great confidence to our heavenly Father.

 

SOME FEATURES OF TRUST

            Let me emphasize some features of this confidence or trust in our heavenly Father.

 

Feature Number One: Approaching our heavenly Father with confidence means that we do not take credit for anything in or of ourselves. The confidence in prayer is not found in us: It’s found in our heavenly Father, in Jesus Christ, our intercessor and mediator. And in the abiding Spirit of God, “who intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” Our confidence does not rest in ourselves or in our works, but in the works of the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 

Feature Number Two: Take heart in these wonderful characteristics of God: His goodness—compared with earthly fathers, God excels us all. He is our heavenly Father, who knows what’s good and best for us. There is no sin, no evil, no ill-will, no selfishness in our heavenly Father. He is the epitome of goodness.

 

            Here’s another characteristic: His majesty. Our heavenly Father is sovereign ruler, all powerful, able to do whatever is needful for our good. The Catechism reminds us in Q.&A. 121 that the Lord Jesus teaches us to pray “Our Father in heaven,” so that we will “not think of God’s heavenly majesty as something earthly….”

 

 In other words, our heavenly Father transcends any earthly royalty. Our Father in heaven is Someone “out of this world” who nevertheless reaches out to us in this world, because He is our Father, having adopted us as his children through Christ Jesus. Thank God for his characteristics of goodness and majesty! They are our confidence boosters in prayer.

 

Feature Number Three: Our heavenly Father knows our needs. He knows we are dust, vulnerable, frail, in need of breath and bread, in need of health and vitality to live a full life. Our heavenly Father knows our need for redemption and restoration, for life and salvation.

 

That’s why Jesus, the Son of God, took on our dust, our human nature. That’s why he died, and rose again. That’s why he has secured our destiny by ascending into heaven in his resurrected, glorified body. Our heavenly Father knows what it takes to live as humans—in body and soul. That’s why we may expect “everything for body and soul from God’s almighty power” as we pray to our heavenly Father. He knows—and in time, and over time, and for all time, God will supply what it takes to live with him forever and ever.

 

And that’s why in the mean time—while we wait for the ascended Lord Jesus to come again in all his glory and majesty—we may pray with great confidence to our heavenly Father.

 

Glory be to him, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.