Sincere Attitude of Prayer
By Nick Bibile
This sermon is not an exposition
of prayer or a study of prayer but deals with our hearts and motives when we
pray.
John Calvin said, “To prayer, then,
are we indebted for penetrating to those riches which are treasured up for us
with our heavenly Father.” John Knox said, “Who will pray must know and understand that prayer is an earnest and
familiar talking with God.” What is prayer? John Bunyan said, “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 hath promised, or according to the Word, for the good of the church,
with submission, in faith, to the will of God.”
The word sincere means, truthful,
genuine, unmixed and pure.
The opposite of sincere prayer is
to praying in hypocritical attitude to please men, to be seen by men to be
applauded by men, it is a prayer to please people. And also if we are praying
selfishly then the prayer is not sincere.
If we are praying untruthfully means not telling the whole truth to the
Lord then that prayer is not sincere. God is not going to hear if we are not sincere. How many times we hear when people pray
together, one person is preaching a sermon to the other person in prayer, there
are prayer battles, they use prayer as a means to rebuke a person. I believe
this is getting into the flesh. As an example if we are in a group of prayer,
then I am praying, “Lord I pray that John will have more love, and Sue has a
bad temper, Joe is very lazy.” Now do you see what I am saying, this person
sees all the other people’s weaknesses according to this person’s judgment but
he never prays for his weaknesses, he is ok.
We need to see our own sins instead of the other person’s sins in prayer
or else we become hypocritical. John
Knox said, we need to expel all fleshly mediations when we come to God.
Jas 5:16 Confess your faults one
to another, and pray one for another,
In a group prayer meeting we
should not look for other peoples faults, but we need to confess our faults one
to another. We need to remember in prayer we are coming to the Almighty God’s
throne, so need to come trembling as he sees our motives and our hearts and
every thought behind our prayer. We need to be sincere before God.
Pr 15:8 “. the prayer of the upright is his delight.”
It is the heart that God looks at. Sometimes our prayers can be
very fleshly, as gossip can start through a prayer meeting. “Did you hear what
so and so prayed about the other person?”
And this kind of prayer can bring a lot of speculations to the body of
Christ, as we have to wonder about John, “Hmm so John does not have love for
others, Joe is a lazy person.” The truth of the matter is that John and Joe
even do not know about this, they are very innocent. It is very tempting to rebuke, or correct someone not directly
but use prayer as a means. This is an easy way out. The Bible is very clear that we need to correct and rebuke.
2Ti 4:2 Preach the word; be
instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all
longsuffering and doctrine.
Pr 27:5 Open rebuke is better than secret love.
But if I rebuke him or her he or
she will get angry with me. It is much easy to do it in prayer. Remember what
Jesus said:
Mt 5:23 Therefore if thou bring
thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought
against thee;
Mt 5:24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way;
first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Matthew Henry said, “prayers made
in wrath (anger) are written in gall.”
Let us see a true incident in the
Bible.
Ga 2:11 But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face,
because he was to be blamed.
12 For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the
Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing
them which were of the circumcision.
13 And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that
Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.
14 But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the
truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew,
livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest
thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?
Paul did not have a prayer
meeting and rebuked Peter through prayer, but he rebuked Peter directly. And
Peter being a godly man, did not take Paul’s rebuke to his flesh and get mad at
Paul. You have to give a lot of credit to Peter for being humble. In a group
prayer meeting if we speculate something and pray for someone’s faults and the
other person is not at present. It is not healthy for the body and also it is
personally not good for you as you will gradually get away from that person and
you don’t feel comfortable anymore, this is totally in contradiction to the
body ministry as a body we need to love one another. Later on you will realize
half of the things what you thought is not true, because you do not really know
what the other person is going through, only when you have a heart to heart
direct talk then you realize that you should have done this long time ago,
instead of infecting this in your mind.
We need to lay aside our fleshly
thoughts, as those thoughts will not
interfere with our pure mediation with our holy God. We need to be sincere and
rise our souls to the purity of God. Sincerity carries our soul and opens our
hearts to God. Sincerity is the true carrier of prayer to God.
A humble confession of sin.
Again, do not pray upon your own
justice, praying upon all other people’s faults but confess sins as a whole,
not saying he has or she has sinned but we have sinned. True humility in prayer is to admit we have
sinned even though it was that someone else in the church who was involved in
sin. Our flesh does not want to do this, as our flesh wants to show how good we
are and how bad the other person is. It is the other person’s fault and not my
fault, remember when one hurts the whole body hurts. When one is at fault it
hurts the whole body.
John Calvin mentioned that the
Old Testament saints were holier than we are yet look at their humility in
their prayers; they took the other peoples sins upon themselves.
David.
Ps 79:8 O remember not against us
former iniquities: let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us: for we
are brought very low.
9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of
thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name's
sake.
Jer 14:7 O LORD, though our iniquities testify against us,
do thou it for thy name's sake: for our backslidings are many; we
have sinned against thee.
Da 9:5 We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have
done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from
thy judgments:
Da 9:15 And now, O Lord our God, that hast brought thy people forth out
of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and hast gotten thee renown, as at
this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
16 O Lord, according to all thy
righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from
thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the
iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to
all that are about us.
17 Now therefore, O our God,
hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to
shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake.
18 O my God, incline thine ear,
and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is
called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our
righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies.
19 O Lord, hear; O
Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God:
for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.
We may have to do a separate Bible study on this passage alone on prayer on another day. See Daniel’s reverence to God, as he is pouring out his soul saying “O Lord, O Lord” Spurgeon said, “the prayer that hits the target is asking for forgiveness.”
Today if a Pastor or someone prays like this, the others think,
“Hmm..He is confessing his sins because he has sinned, I wonder what he
did..” Speaking about Daniel and the
others of their humility in prayer John Knox said, “Behold, that in these
prayers is no mention of their own justice, their own satisfaction, or their
own merits; but most humble confession, proceeding from a sorrowful and
penitent heart.”
Charles Spurgeon prayed, “Our Father, we are very weak. Worst of all we are very wicked if left to ourselves, and we soon fall a prey to the enemy. Therefore help us. We confess that sometimes in prayer when we are nearest to you at that very time some evil thought comes in, some wicked desire. Oh! What poor simpletons we are. Lord help us.”
Humility will make us cry unto the Lord.
We living in a generation where
pride rules, in the church sometimes we see pride is covered with
humility. Even when it comes to prayer
there is pride, prayer becomes man centered.
We approach God with a long list of wants, and even our intercessory
prayers are more from the mouth than the hearts, we pray for others just
because we have to pray or showing God, “look God I am praying for
someone.” But in reality in why we
pray? Because we are powerless, sinful. We need to rely on God. There should be
a sense of powerlessness in prayer. When Daniel prayed he began, “O Lord hear.”
It means I am not worthy to be heard from God. The tax collector who went to
pray in the temple did not even look up to heavens, as he was unworthy before
God Almighty.
True humility will make you bow
down to God. Our soul will go to the
very lowest depths in the site of His majesty. The prayer that goes to the
heavens is the prayer that comes from the lowest of hearts. Proud prayers will knock on God’s throne but
it will never find a place in heaven. We need to be a beggar at his footstool.
In our generation today, we living as man is the center of everything. The motto of the world is, “a strong man
will never weep.” But in Christianity the strong man always breaks down before
God in humility, and true humility is found in genuine tears. In prayer we need
to see how unworthy we are and how helpless we are and cry out to God.
Ps 69:3 I am weary of my crying:
my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.
David roars, cries, weeps, faints
at heart, fails at the eyes, loseth his moisture.
Ps 38:6 I am troubled; I am bowed
down greatly; I go mourning all the day long.
Remember Hannah, how Phinehas
provoked her all the time and made her life miserable, saying Hannah did not
have children. Hannah being a godly woman did not take the accusations into her
hands but gave to the Lord.
1Sa 1:10 And she was in
bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore.
This is where Hezekiah was sick, when
Isaiah the prophet came and told Hezekiah, that he is going to die.
Isa 38:14 Like a crane or a
swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking
upward: O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me.
Mt 26:75 And Peter remembered the
word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me
thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.
Jesus who had no sin cried
with tears.
Heb 5:7 Who in the days of his
flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and
tears….
We need to pray for the others who are weak and who at faulty, and we need to intercede for them. We need to do this in our closet, and when we gather together in public prayer, we need to be more sensitive to others around you who are listening to your prayers.
Let me close, that something we can learn from Daniel’s prayer. For certainly we know Daniel’s rebellion to God was much less than his own fellow Israelites. But yet he was the first to make confession on their behalf. So my dear brothers and sisters, when we have confessed our own sins and have found mercy, then we should intercede for others.