Why We Pray E-Book

William Philip

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 126

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Prayer is foundational to the Christian life, but many people don't really understand it. What is it for? How does it work? Why do we do it? This short and accessible book explains what prayer is, why it exists, and how it can encourage us in our life of faith. Written by a pastor with years of teaching and counseling experience, Why We Pray doesn't simply tell readers why they should pray, but instead focuses on four blessing-filled reasons that will help Christians want to pray. Rather than feeling discouraged and disheartened by their inconsistency in prayer, readers will feel reinvigorated to approach God with confidence and joy, delighted by the privilege of talking directly to their loving heavenly Father.

Leseprobe

WHY

WE

PRAY

WILLIAM PHILIP

Foreword by Alistair Begg

Why We Pray

Copyright © 2015 by William J. U. Philip

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Connie Gabbert

First printing 2015

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. 2011 Text Edition. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture references marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-4286-2ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-4289-3 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-4287-9Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-4288-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Philip, William, 1967–

Why we pray / William Philip ; foreword by Alistair Begg.

      1 online resource.

     Includes bibliographical references and index.

     Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

     ISBN 978-1-4335-4287-9 (pdf) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4288-6 (mobi) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4289-3 (epub) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4286-2 (tp)

     1. Prayer—Christianity. I. Title.

BV210.3

248.3’2—dc23                   2014044038

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

To the memory of my father, James Philip

His prayers, especially those from the pulpit of Holyrood Abbey Church, Edinburgh, were an enriching benediction for which I and countless others will give thanks all the days of our lives.

Contents

Foreword by Alistair BeggIntroduction   1  We Pray Because God Is a Speaking God   2  We Pray Because We Are Sons of God   3  We Pray Because God Is a Sovereign God   4  We Pray Because We Have the Spirit of GodNotesGeneral IndexScripture Index

Foreword

In the pregnant pause between the ascension and Pentecost there is a prayer meeting in Jerusalem. Jesus had instructed his followers to wait for the promised Holy Spirit in order that they might take the gospel to the end of the earth. Luke records the gathering of the eleven apostles in the upper room. “All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers” (Acts 1:14). It is no exaggeration to say that the church was born in prayer and that the subsequent growth of the Word and of the church cannot be explained apart from their prayers. Jesus had made it clear to them that apart from him they could do nothing (John 15:5), and he had also taught them that if they knew how to give good gifts to their children, to a far greater extent the Father would give good gifts to them that asked him (Matt. 7:11; Luke 11:13). Throughout Acts we find the church at prayer.

In seeking a replacement for Judas they prayed for guidance (Acts 1:24). When Peter and John were confronted by opposition and threats, they lifted their voices together to the sovereign Lord and prayed that they might continue to speak the Word with all boldness (Acts 4:29). When the practical demands of a growing church became the occasion of discord, the apostles made it clear that nothing must divert them from the priority of prayer and the ministry of the Word (Acts 6:4).

This thread of earnest, united, believing prayer is woven throughout the fabric of the early church. When Herod had killed James, and it looked as though Peter was next, “earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church” (Acts 12:5). The commissioning of Barnabas and Saul took place in the context of worship and prayer (Acts 13:3). As Derek Thomas observes, “The New Testament Church had grasped the essential truth that the God who ordains the end of all things has also ordained the means of its accomplishment.”1

This should not surprise us because this pattern of prevailing prayer was one that the disciples had learned from spending time with the Lord Jesus. It becomes clear from reading the Gospels that prayer was established in Jesus’s life as a holy habit. After an intense evening when Jesus healed the sick and dealt with the demons, the disciples searched for Jesus. He wasn’t where they expected because, “rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35). Similarly, before the selection of the twelve disciples, “he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God” (Luke 6:12).

On the Mount of Olives, as he faced the grim reality of the crucifixion, “he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed” (Luke 22:41). It is no wonder that on one such occasion one of the disciples asked him to teach them how to pray (Luke 11:1). Presumably the reality and intensity of his prayers caused those closest to him to want to learn the secret of real prayer. We might all be grateful for the man’s request, for it is surely one with which we find ourselves identifying. In our Christian lives nothing is more important and nothing more difficult to maintain than a meaningful prayer life. Having warned against heaping up empty phrases (Matt. 6:7), Jesus provided his followers with a prayer that may be used as it stands. Although all the pronouns are plural and so fit worship that is corporate and public, the prayer may also be employed to our benefit in private. Although it is routinely referred to as the “Lord’s Prayer,” we might better think of it as the Disciple’s Prayer in that he gave it to his followers to employ as they approach their heavenly Father.

The one hundredth question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What does the preface of the Lord’s Prayer teach us?” and provides the answer: “It teaches us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence, as children to a father; able and ready to help us, and that we should pray with and for others.” Every time we repeat this prayer we are reminded that our fellowship with God, through his son Jesus Christ, finds its principal expression in prayer. Our ability to call God “Father” is on account of his grace. “In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:4–5). It is true that God has a kind of fatherhood of all by creation, but this is a prayer for those who are his by redemption, who have received the spirit of sonship, enabling them to cry, “Abba, Father.” When we come to trust in Christ we receive the right to become God’s children. By grace we are welcomed into a family to which we do not belong by nature. Martin Luther referred to this prayer as “the greatest martyr on earth,” because it was used so frequently without thought or feeling, without reverence or faith. In the pages that follow, Dr. Philip helps to ensure that this will not be true of us, not just in terms of the Lord’s Prayer, but also in every expression of prayer. As one of the author’s mentors helpfully observed:

Prayer for the Christian is a matter of believing that God is, and that he does respond to those who believe in him. Prayer then, instead of being a matter of times and seasons and special or routine occasions, becomes a life, or it becomes such a vital part of life that it re-focuses one’s whole outlook. We become interested in God, his ways, his doings, his words and we find ourselves agreeing with him about perhaps a great many things we were tempted not to agree about before. And the very humility which unself-consciously comes with such an attitude is one of sheer delight.

John Bunyan testified to such delight during the twelve years he spent in prison for unlawful preaching of the Bible. In communion with God he was enabled to write most of his literary and theological works, including in 1662, A Discourse Touching Prayer, in which he provides a wonderful definition of prayer:

Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to His Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God.

My earliest awareness of this kind of believing prayer was in hearing my parents pray for me when they thought I was already asleep. Along with that, I was always intrigued by the mats stored in one of the halls in our church building. When I enquired about them, I learned that they were used for kneeling during the Friday night prayer. It occurred to me that those adults must really believe that God answers prayer. Since then I have realized the various hindrances we meet when coming to God in prayer. Reminding myself of a number of useful observations has helped me:

If our prayer is meager, it is because we regard it as supplemental and not fundamental.

We can do more than pray after we have prayed but not until we have prayed.

We do not pray for the work. Prayer is the work and preaching is gathering up the results.

God does not delay to hear our prayers because he has no mind to give; but that by enlarging our desires, he may give us the more largely.

So then it is my prayer that the pages of this book will encourage each of us to “continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving” (Col. 4:2).

Alistair Begg

Parkside Church

Chagrin Falls, Ohio

Introduction

As a pastor, I had often felt I ought to preach a series on prayer. But I have to confess that I had always been put off doing so because so many of the sermons I have heard about prayer have made me feel rather depressed.

You know the kind of thing: somebody will tell you, with fervent emotion, about a great preacher getting up at four o’clock every morning and praying for six hours before breakfast, and if only you would do the same, it will be the secret to unlocking the spiritual blessing in your life. I’m afraid I just find that sort of thing really disheartening. I find I’m doing very well indeed if I can manage to pry myself out of bed at all before breakfast, never mind have hours of prayer. That kind of pious exhortation, which no doubt is genuinely intended to make me determined to go on praying and not give up, well, it just makes me want to give up altogether even before I’ve begun.

I may well simply be more perverse than you are, but that’s the effect that kind of sermon has on me. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that many Christians feel the same.

Some time ago, however, as I was thinking about how I could encourage my Christian brothers and sisters in prayer rather than discouraging and depressing them, I was reading a book that I found to be one of the most helpful I can recall ever reading on this subject. It was not a light book; it was a substantial biblical theology of prayer, with plenty to excite the neurons and tax the gray matter.2 But the reason I found it so helpful was that in looking at what the whole Bible teaches about prayer, it reminded me of something very important: that we learn most about prayer simply by learning about God. That is a great thing to be reminded of, because the real truth about God is never discouraging. The Lord himself is never depressing as some very well-meaning and over-pious Christians often are, or can make you feel.

So after reading that book on prayer, which really turned out to be a book about knowing God, I found for the first time that I really did want to preach about prayer, because I thought I could prepare for it without getting depressed, and I could perhaps preach on it without depressing and discouraging others. (There can surely be no worse crime for any preacher than to depress and discourage the people of God.) I discovered that as I focused the congregation on God himself, asking the most basic question of all—Why do we pray?—we found immense encouragement in our relationship with the Lord and real help in the chief expression of that relationship, which is prayer.

As a church fellowship, made up of Christian people of all ages and stages, as well as those still exploring the faith, we found these studies together to be a real blessing. They are offered here in the hope that others too may find the Bible’s explanation of the nature of prayer, rather than mere exhortation about our need to pray, similarly liberating.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said . . .

Genesis 1:1–3a

1

We Pray Because God Is a Speaking God

The most important question to ask first about prayer is—Why? Why do we pray? Not, Why should we pray? We begin not with an exhortation but with an explanation: why prayer exists at all, as it were. Why is there such a thing as prayer? Prayer is speaking to God, but—just think about it for a moment—why should there be any such thing as speaking to God? Why would God want us to speak to him? Why would God need us to speak to him if he controls all things, as he does? Why would we need to speak to God just because he’s there? We have a queen in the United Kingdom, but I don’t speak to the queen, and I don’t suppose you do either—not very often, anyway. Why should we speak to God just because he is a powerful being and our sovereign ruler and Lord?

At its most basic and fundamental level, we pray because