Word of Salvation – Vol.04 No.22 – June 1958
Lord, Teach Us To Pray
Sermon by Rev. J. F. H. van der Bom on Lord’s Day 45 & Luke 11:1
Scripture Reading: Job 1
Hymns: 128; 260; 78; 22; 435
Translated by John Westendorp (with some help from Google :-)
Translator’s note: early editions of ‘Word of Salvation’ still had some sermons in Dutch for the migrant communities that then made up the Reformed Churches of Australia.
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
If it were true, brothers and sisters, that “necessity taught a man to pray”, or at least taught him to pray better, how well it would be with us in our time.
Then we could excel in prayer now, and there would never have been such good prayers in the world as since the last world war. If necessity taught us to pray….! After all, praying is: ‘Asking’, people say.
And it is certainly true that our world has never been so full of tensions and desires and questions as it is now.
The only pity is that there is so little unanimity in all our human questions.
What one person considers desirable or necessary, another may find hardly worth the effort.
Of course, it can happen, for example in a time of great drought, that thousands unite at that one moment of need, in one common plea, for rain.
But you must not think that those who pray have now also agreed on dozens of other points. Could it be true that necessity also teaches us to PRAY?
For prayer is that wonderfully great thing, that all small desires and longings fall away at the same moment as unimportant, because big and small, and rich and poor, Miss Success and Mr Dissatisfaction together are filled with concern for only ONE THING.
When a hundred churchgoers with a hundred and one different or conflicting interests come together to pray, they say ONE THING as their heart’s desire. Then they confess that they see every other desire as a sin, for which they ask forgiveness.
The sick and the healthy, children and housewives, workers and authorities, farmers and citizens, suddenly come very close to each other in that common prayer, because together they go to the Redeemer, Jesus, Who is Life, and Who gives life….!
For it is not need that teaches us to pray, but the Redeemer, Jesus Christ. It is He who teaches us to know our need – and ourselves – thoroughly, but who also wants us all to share in the same joy of the Open Door.
We must ask this often, in our time. Lord, teach us and all Your creatures to pray.
Because JESUS CHRIST TEACHES US TO PRAY – and
- We MUST learn it, as a part of our daily life;
2. We MAY learn it, as a part of our gratitude;
3. We CAN learn it, for He teaches us so.
1) Our prayer life is meant to be a part of our everyday life.
Prayer is something that God requires of us.
This means that our praying does not belong to the decorations, the luxury or the Sunday side of our lives… as indeed many serious people consider prayer as something so holy and sublime, that they only come to it on very special occasions . In the name of ‘the holiness of prayer’ they make it an exception.
But it is quite different. In the Name of the holiness of that God who demands it of us, prayer is a matter of every day. Pray without ceasing.
How often does a child need his mother, how often does he walk up to you to give you a hug, or to get some treat, or just to say goodnight..?
And how often do we need care ourselves, how often do we take our meals?
Well, then we can calculate for ourselves how often our heavenly Father counts on us to come to Him.
If the Word of God is our daily bread, then we must really take care of it every day. And then prayer is a fixed habit of life for a Christian.
Don’t we shudder when we say that?
Do we not immediately feel the difficulty? Who among us can say that he is accustomed to praying, without immediately feeling himself accused to the core of hypocrisy and routine, habitual work? Who has never been on the point of giving it up?
And yet…! If someone may say that he is accustomed to pray, he at the same time testifies to the highest and most glorious thing that is possible for a sinner here on this earth.
Our prayer is a rule of daily intercourse with the Holy One, and with Christ, the Hope of Glory.
For we may say that God demands it of us. He, who is the Most High, and sometimes seems the eternally Unapproachable… how shall we meet Him? Must we undertake a great journey for that, can we only find Him for sure in the hour when we must die?
No, says our Saviour.
For Jesus has brought God within your reach. “Go into your closet…!” He probably means the pantry. In that place, where our milk and bread are stored, there I can also call on my Father. Believe that He knows where to find us. Call on Him while He is so near.
And on Sundays, of course, according to our usual custom… in church.
All over the world we come together.
And heaven, and the angels, and the Holy God Himself want to join us again according to His firm promise. “Oh, if I could also be present in those holy buildings,” sighs David, when he had to wander around: “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after….!” What a beautiful wedding text that is. Also to hang on the wall. On Your behalf my heart says: Seek My face. I seek Your face, O Lord (Psalm 27). For God wants to give His grace and the Holy Spirit to those who with hearty sighs and without ceasing pray for it and thank Him for it.
Oh, then we sometimes think we have a reason to postpone our prayer, to wait. Yes, what to wait for?
Maybe to create more need later?
Or will we soon be forced by necessity to go to God again?
Is not today’s need great enough?
And does not each day have enough trouble of its own?
Is there anyone among us who is afraid of routine? Then he should pray often and very regularly. Because routine is indeed such a devilish danger among us. I can only cope with it through the power of daily prayer.
Just look at our very small toddlers. They still find it self-evident that they never skip their prayers. Because the Saviour is still in the middle of their lives.
Can’t a habit be a miracle, and a great blessing..?
Have you considered My servant Job? God asks. There is none like him in the land of Uz. A father of ten, a man of great wealth, and upright and blameless, one who fears God and turns away from evil.
Yes, that is what daily prayer does now. For that is the wonderful rule of being allowed to live with God.
2) Now we have already, unknowingly, moved from the first to the second point, from having to pray to being allowed to pray.
That fits in with the life of the Covenant, …in life with Christ they always go so wonderfully together, the must and the may. That is how it is every time in our preparation for the Lord’s Supper: must and may. Our Catechism is also full of it.
On the one hand, there is that Gospel DEMAND, that God the Father will again expect something from us, which is not at all natural to us. And that Jesus our Redeemer imposes His holy will on us, of which we are not yet able to do much. He also claims us completely through prayer. Our own will, will have to bend in order to reach the heights of His holiness. Admit honestly that it is often very difficult for us, even to pray.
But immediately next to this must, or even in its extension, lies that tremendous wealth of being allowed.
What a liberation when you see that.
I have to go to church, yes, because I may.
I have to go to the Lord’s Supper, because I may.
Praying without ceasing – that is a must.
For that is how my Father wants it, that I, as it were, knock on His door.
I must expect everything from Him,
surrender everything to Him, let Him lead me, He demands it.
But for a Christian that is a light burden, a sweet pleasure.
Imagine, says the Catechism, that God Himself finds it pleasant to hear everything from us, to know everything about us, to be everything for us. Call to Me in the day of your distress, for that is what I am for, I take My divine joy in helping you out.
I must pray. I may pray.
Surrender everything to Him.
Expect everything from Him.
That is allowed. If I did not know that… where would I get the boldness to ever use God’s Name again. And there would be no greater audacity than that of someone who goes to the Lord’s Supper with a hymn on their lips.
But I may.
God Himself demands it of me; I, who know myself supremely (and He knows me a thousand times better….!) I may call Him my Saviour, the Hearer of prayer.
What should I lack
When Your hand guides me?
What more ardently should I desire
Than Your glory?
I may…! That is what the believer says in his heart at the beginning of every prayer. And with that also becomes transparent that name: “the main part of gratitude”.
We cannot better show our gratitude to God or prove our love to Him than by saying to Him daily: I need You so much, teach me Your way.
What shall I render to God, and with what shall I meet Him? He wants my prayer!
When Job later sat on the ash heap with a thousand anxious questions in his soul, Job did not forget one thing: to call upon God. And although Job sometimes did so with a raw cry on his lips, this prayer was pleasing to the Lord. Thus Job glorified God even in his deepest suffering and in his despair.
I wretched man, I am sometimes more than tired of myself.
I can, I dare not pray any more.
But I thank God through Jesus Christ, who commanded me, being unworthy, to come to him.
And when the hour of death strikes, my prayer will be the chief piece of gratitude I have to offer Him.
3) Now, none of us will trust that he or she is already finished and accomplished in the matter of prayer.
If only we all set out on our way to be taught, to learn to pray better.
Because it is really not true that everyone can pray, or that praying just comes to you. If you need something, you just ask. If you are sick, you just pray…! Nothing will come of it. What pleasure the devil has in all those disappointed praying people walking around, who have prayed to God, perhaps without ceasing, to get something from Him. But they have received nothing, gained nothing. After all, they have stopped praying.
Have such people ever known anything of the joy of being allowed to pray? No, not to get something from God. Because answered prayer does not mean that after much nagging and begging you finally get your way with God.
The joy of answered prayer is that wonderful luxury of knowing of a listening Ear, of a God who concerns Himself with us.
I know that my Redeemer lives…! That cry from Job’s ash-heap is proof of answered prayer. In my most violent temptations, there is still a handhold.
Again, that’s not something you just get.
Who can say the same about Job?
Job himself experienced that we only get to where we need to be through deep suffering and dark need.
It is not about us, Father in heaven, Your will must be done.
What I want is unimportant.
What I want, oh keep quiet…!
What I want…? Smite me and teach me to discover Your holy will in my life.
Of course, we may also ask in our prayer for a partner, and a car, and a house, and a good job. If we also prepare ourselves in prayer for the fact that our path could well be exactly that of Job, without a house, and without a car, and with a quarrelsome spouse.
Teach me to always glorify You, God of my Salvation.
I wait for You all day long. I thank You that it must be so.
And that it can be so. Because Jesus Himself taught me so.
Worldly people pray only when or as long as they think that they can change something in this world with their prayers.
But a Christian knows better.
Should our prayer be to point out to God His duties, or to try to interest Him in our interests? All these things do the heathen seek, says Christ.
But do you know what happens when a Christian prays?
He casts the line from his rickety boat to the shore.
No, that doesn’t change the sea.
That doesn’t calm the waves.
That doesn’t even pull the mainland towards us.
But we pull ourselves to the safe haven. That is prayer…!
Fortunately, we do not have to change God with our prayers.
But we may pull ourselves up to Him, and cast out the ropes to the fixed points of His unwavering love and faithfulness. In this way, my prayer brings me ever nearer to Him in the midst of need.
Yes, what are our prayers full of? Are they a long story, a wish list of our own making?
Or are you trying to learn what all the saints of the Bible had to learn: “One thing I have desired of the Lord.”
David and Samuel, Abraham, Elijah and Job and Paul, with all the distances between them of centuries and circumstances, all had the same prayer. And that prayer was answered in their lives. For that prayer is answered in the life of every child of God. Or do you not find this an answer, …that we, unworthy ones, must and may and can pray?
Then learn it by heart and repeat it gratefully:
Behold, this is our God; we have hoped in him, and he will save us:
This is the LORD; we have hoped in him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
Amen.
(The above sermon can also be read in a service in preparation for the celebration of Holy Communion. JvdB.)