Title: HofP Prayer Requires/Creates Surrender James 4:1-10 Aim: Imp of surrender of the whole life in love to God in prayer. Intro: Before I speak, I

Transcription

1 Title: HofP Prayer Requires/Creates Surrender James 4:1-10 Aim: Imp of surrender of the whole life in love to God in prayer. Intro: Before I speak, I d like to say something. In just about 6 weeks, we who are of age will each & every one (at least I hope & pray so) go to the polls & vote for the next president of the US. I know it is a difficult proposition, given the candidates we have before us, but we should most definitely vote! But before we vote, we should pray! Pray for our nation, pray for the church in our nation, pray about the election, pray believing that God will give us the leader He desires to carry out His purposes. Want to challenge you to join with your church family in daily praying for America thruout the month of October 31 days leading up to the election on Nov.5 th. We have some booklets to guide you can pick up after service (1 per family, please, until every family which wants one has one, then you can take the extras). During the month of October the Sunday AM messages will concentrate on prayer for our nation. Pray31 is an effort being promoted across the nation, so we ll be joining the rest of the Church of America & probably many over the world in praying for our nation. Certainly fits w/our focus/ theme of House of Prayer, understanding that God has called His Church to be a house of prayer, people of prayer, regularly encountering Him, the living God, being transformed by those encounters & being used by Him to help others encounter/know Him, too. Today is the last in the series concerning what Tim Keller, in his book entitled Prayer, Experiencing awe & intimacy w/god, has called touchstones of prayer. If you remember, a touchstone is literally a small rock containing silica that was rubbed against a piece of gold or silver to test its degree of purity or genuineness. A touchstone of prayer, then, is a characteristic of an individual s or group s prayer which tests the relative strength or weakness, the genuineness of our prayers for honoring & connecting us to God. 4 categories/clusters of 3 each: what prayer is, what it requires, what it gives & where it takes us. Let me review these 1 final time. What prayer is: 1) Work takes time/effort. 1

2 2) Word should involve the reading of God s word that we might hear from God & respond accordingly. 3) Balance not just asking gimme, gimme, but praising, thanking, confessing, etc. What prayer requires: 1) Grace We can only approach God on the basis of His grace displayed thru Jesus Christ, our Savior. Only by His atoning work can we know/commune w/god. 2) Fear a healthy reverence for God, our hearts engaged in loving awe of God. 3) Helplessness we must recognize & accept our weakness & dependence upon God. What prayer gives: 1) Perspective - reorienting our view toward God a continual realignment. 2) Strength prayer is spiritual union w/god, accessing by faith the whole armor of God. 3) Spiritual reality as we seek a heart sense of the presence of God practicing the presence of God moment by moment, day by day. Where prayer takes us: 1) To self-knowledge requiring & creating honesty & self-knowledge; enabling us to see ourselves as we really are in light of who God is. 2) To trust requiring & creating restful trust & confident hope. Genuine prayer directed to the living God is steadfast, enduring & at the same time trusting God to know & do best. We can both be persistent in prayer & rest in Him because we trust in Him. Finally, for our focus today, prayer takes us to surrender. Keller wrote, Prayer requires & creates surrender of the whole life in love to God. Chew on that thruout this week! Genuine prayer requires & creates surrender of the whole life in love to God. This tells us that the aim of prayer goes well beyond the specific request we might make to God, to God Himself. What we ultimately need in any/every circumstance is Him! If we fall short of encountering Him & responding to Him in surrender, we have not prayed! Text bears this out - James 4:1-10 [READ]. Note how skillfully James read between the lines, so to speak. He was addressing the problem of division/jealousy/conflicts among these Christians scattered because of persecution. James understood that the source/cause/origin of the quarrels/fights among them was their passions, desires for pleasure selfish desires warring w/in them 2

3 individually & thus leading to warring among them as a group a group which was supposed to be the ekklesia Church! That phrase are at war is waging war, which depicted soldiers on active duty, in the midst of battle. But these believers were fighting each other. Why? Because they were jealous of each other wanted what the others had less persecution, better housing, better job, better means, or even better spiritual gift, better prayer life, better position in the church, better marriage, better behaved children, better background, etc. They desired what others had (or what they perceived others had) & since they didn t have the same themselves, they hated those who had what they wanted (don t know if murder is literally murder or hating killing others in their mind, killing their reputation, killing the relationship w/them). Do you hate (or not love) those who disagree w/you politically or theologically, etc? Sometimes it sounds like that on FB! These believers fought & quarreled because of this jealousy. Then note what is a central part of this passage for our thinking today: You don t have because you don t ask, don t ask God. If we re truly totally dependent upon God, then whatever we need we should ask from Him. We should ask God for everything we need. Take that very literally. Whether it be a better atmosphere at work/home, your spouse s affection/oneness in marriage, your children s obedience, your nation s future, etc., ask God! Do you believe God cares about you, only gives good gifts, hears/answers your prayers? Then pray ask God. But there s a very imp caveat here vs3. If it seems your prayers are going unheard/unanswered, maybe you re asking wrongly w/wrong motives to spend it on your passions. Do you pray for your spouse so he/she will be a better husband/wife for you, or that they ll be the man/woman of God He wants them to be? Do you pray for your children to be obedient so it will be easier for you or so that God will be glorified & they will learn to know/obey Him? Do you pray for you son/daughter who is not walking w/god to come to/back to Him because you re embarrassed or because you love God & them? Think about this: 3

4 who s 1 st in your prayers? Keller wrote, The idea is this. Just as faith in Christ cannot accomplish or merit our salvation but is necessary to receive it so a commitment to put God 1 st & love & follow Him supremely is necessary before God can grant our prayers w/out harming us. If we are living lives in which God does not have our highest allegiance, then we will use prayer instrumentally, selfishly, simply to try to get the things that may be already ruining our lives. Selfish/ wrong motives reveal our divided hearts. We are adulterous people, wanting our own way, running after other gods of our own making, pursuing friendship/allegiance w/the world & wanting God s blessing on it. James warns that friendship w/the world is enmity w/god makes us enemies of God. If we don t love God w/all our heart, soul, mind & strength, it s as if we hate Him, practically speaking. In James 1:5-8, James encourages us to ask God for wisdom, if we lack it, & God will gladly give it. Ask God! But, we must ask in faith, w/out doubting w/out being at variance w/ourselves, hesitating between trust & doubt. Such a person will receive nothing from God because he is doubleminded of 2 minds, divided in interest (look more closely in later message). Doubting is normal & we will often be tempted to doubt. But what this passage calls us to, is locking onto God, putting Him 1 st in our thinking & faith. Keller wrote, It means not that you are perfect, or morally pure, or devoid of any uncertainty. It means that you have made a decision that God is your God & you are going to ditch all competing concerns the moment you can discern them. It is to take hold of Ps.73:25 Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides You. James points out that God is a jealous God (vs5), who has put His Holy Spirit w/in each & every believer. He yearns jealously over the spirit that He has made to dwell in us. God longs to connect w/us by His Spirit prayer is the avenue! James calls us to lay down the pride which says, I want what I want instead of what God wants; the pride which says, I want what he has & I ll hate him if I don t get it, instead of Thank you, God, for what You ve given me. I 4

5 want more of You; the pride which says, I want to be right, agreed w/, instead of Father, show me Your truth & love others thru me. God opposes [is against] the proud, but give grace [His favor] to the humble. So what are we to do? SURRENDER! Submit to God arrange yourself under Him, surrender to His control, yield to Him. Resist the devil who wants to divide the Church, turn your heart against your bro/sis, cause you to hate, stir up selfishness, jealousy w/in you. Wonderful news is that if we resist him by the power of the Holy Spirit, he will flee from us. And the key to resisting the devil is drawing near to God. What a wonderful promise we find in vs8: Draw near to God & He will draw near to you! Want God s nearness? Approach Him in faith. Draw near to Him in prayer. Of course, when we do draw near to God & especially when He draws near to us, the light of His presence exposes the darkness in our lives. When God draws near we will always see our uncleanness, our sin. So we must confess don t shy away from that. Mourn your sinfulness. Genuine prayer laments sin, but doesn t try to hide what God can clearly see. Own your sin, be pained by it, so you can know the peace & joy of forgiveness. Plead the blood of the Lord Jesus, knowing that He died to pay for your sin. Humble yourself to God lay down pride, lay down your life before Him. And He will exalt you. Exalt yourself & you will be brought low. Humble yourself & He will lift you up! Genuine prayer prayer that touches the living God - requires & thankfully creates surrender of the whole life in love to God. Don t hold anything back from God. Give Him everything. Don t let your life be divided into spiritual & non-spiritual, into home & church, work & leisure. Everything is spiritual. Everything belongs to God. Check your motives in prayer. Put God 1 st in prayer. Let Him be your highest regard, your highest allegiance, your highest desire. Seek His glory in everything. Surrender all. God has said, My house shall be called a house of prayer. Let us be His people of prayer. 5