In the fourth week of our series, we look at how to pray for ourselves. In order to not have our prayers become self-centered and not God-centered, there are some things to keep in mind as we approach our time of prayer. This message is based on Philippians 4:4-7. To read it now, click here This is the fourth week in our series, Going Vertical, a series on prayer, and this week we’re going to talk about praying for ourselves. Last week we mentioned a danger of praying for ourselves, that it could end up being self-centered instead of God-centered. We have to remember to give thanks, we have to remember to pray for others, we don’t want our prayer time to become just rattling off things on a Christmas wish list. But what happens? Sometimes, in order to avoid coming off that way, we go to the opposite extreme. We become uncomfortable praying for ourselves. We almost avoid it. Some people just aren’t comfortable praying for themselves. They’ll offer prayer for others, that will be okay, but they just don’t want to ask for things for themselves. But in our reading, we read, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” The verse seems pretty simple, pretty straightforward. Sometimes it’s easy for us to focus on the beginning part of that, do not be anxious. We have a problem with anxiety. We all do. Paul gives the solution to anxiety in our lives. In everything, not just the big things in life, not just the things that seem spiritual, not just the things that affect other people, but in everything, present your requests to God. It’s impossible to make the argument that we should not pray for ourselves. The Bible makes it very clear that we should pray for ourselves, that we should place everything before God. In fact, we are commanded to. If you have your Bibles, look at what Jesus says in John 14:13-14, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” That just sounds too easy, doesn’t it? And let’s face it, we have all had times when we’ve prayed earnestly, and it didn’t get answered. What about that? If Jesus promises to give us everything we pray for in His name, why didn’t we get some things. Why did the thing we feared the most, the thing we’ve prayed for the most, why did it still happen? Is there some trick to getting everything you want? Is there some hidden condition? We’ll explore that a little later, but the thing we need to remember here, is that God wants to hear from us. He wants us to pray. God makes it clear in the pages of scripture that He wants to hear from us. He wants us to share what is on our hearts. We heard in the first week of our series on prayer that God knows our needs before we even ask, but He wants us to ask. He wants to have a relationship with us. He wants that communication. He has granted us access to him, He wants to hear from us. Last week we saw some ways to keep our prayer life fresh. We saw some things that can make our prayer life stale and break the line of communication with God. Unconfessed sin, broken relationships, disobedience to God, not having a consistent time set aside for prayer, a quiet time each day, not reading the Word, and only going to God when we need something. These were all things that block the line of communication with God, and will cause our prayer life to become stale. This week we’re going to learn about three more conditions that will help our prayers for ourselves to be effective. The first of these is to simply pray with confidence. Ask God for the desires of your heart, but ask with confidence. God wants to hear our prayers, and this should give us confidence to pray. God is not waiting to hear from us because we’re so good. He’s not waiting to hear from us because of our social status, or because of our elevated position above others. He wants to hear from us because He loves us. We can ask with confidence because we know that God loves us. It’s out of his love for us that He wants to hear from us. Knowing this we can ask with confidence. Remember what it said in these verses, present your requests to God, and then it says you can ask for anything that you want in his name, anything, in Jesus name. That should be a great confidence builder. That should open us to a life of prayer. We can confidently present our requests, our needs, our desires to God. The apostle John understood this when he wrote in 1 John 5:14-15, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” James understood this when he wrote in James 1:6-8, “But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” We must believe that God wants to hear from us, and that He wants to answer our prayers. What about those times we didn’t get what we wanted? We prayed in confidence, but it didn’t go the way we thought it would, we didn’t get what we wanted. That brings us to the second point this morning, that we must pray according to God’s will. Our request needs to be submitted to God’s will. We have to want the things that God wants for us, the things that will actually be good for us to get. God wants us to have the best things, so that’s not so hard. So we ask in his name, and we ask according to his will. John reminds us that we can ask for anything, according to God’s will, and it will be done. I want to throw out a caution here. I’ve prayed really hard for something I didn’t get. I’ve prayed for people who were sick, and they weren’t healed, they died. To say that was God’s will sounds like a cop out. It can sound like the great escape clause that God can use so He doesn’t have to answer any of our prayers, but that’s not the right understanding of this. To get a better understanding of what this means, think about parenting. When our children ask for something, do we always give it to them? Do we give them everything that they want? Would we give them something they ask for if we know it would be harmful for them? Or if we know that it wouldn’t be beneficial to them? Of course not. We love them, so we want the best for them. And we filter their requests through that, don’t we? That’s what God does, in his wisdom, when we ask for something in Jesus’ name, if it’s harmful or not beneficial in the long run, we shouldn’t expect it. Of course, we don’t have 20/20 vision into the future, so we don’t always know what’s best. We have to trust God to do what’s best. That’s what it means to pray according to God’s will. Let me give you an example. Turn to Matthew 26:36-46. On the night Jesus was arrested, he knew everything that was going to happen; he knew there was a group that would come out to arrest him that very night. He knew there was a trail awaiting him, he knew about the beatings, the whippings, the torture, the crucifixion. He knew everything that was about to happen to Him. In verse 39, He prayed, “if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” The crucifixion was looming before him. He prayed if there is any other way, if there was anything else that could be done, anything that didn’t include the cross, let’s do that. But not as I will, as you will. Not what I want, what you want. We see the same thing in verse 42. Jesus prays, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” In verse 44, we read, “So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.” Jesus asked three times for a way out. If there was anything that could be done so that He could avoid the cross, that’s what I want. But, we’ll do what you want. You know what’s best, I trust you. This brings us to another important lesson on prayer. Sometimes we pray and pray and pray, and don’t get anything but silence. Sometimes that silence is our answer. Jesus went back to God three times, and He heard nothing but silence. No word from God. But He knew in that silence that this was God’s answer. When the party came to arrest Him, He knew the answer. He knew He must go. In Acts 4, Peter and John are arrested. They had just healed a crippled beggar. And crowds gathered, and Peter and John were preaching about Jesus. So the religious leaders had them arrested, and they spent the night in jail. The next morning, they warned them never to speak about Jesus again, and let them go. When they were released, in verse 23, the believers prayed. Most of their prayer was praise for all that happened. The only part that was really about Peter and Johns arrest is in verse 29, “Now Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.” Did they pray for safety? Did they pray for protection? No. They prayed that they could be faithful despite the threats. They prayed they may continue to preach with boldness. If only we could pray like that, not always looking to avoid problems, but looking to remain faithful despite our problems. No so much for healing, but to remain faithful through our sickness. That brings us to our last point. And that is to step out in faith. Sometimes, when we have prayed, we have to step out in faith, knowing God is with us. Back to Jesus on the night of His arrest. Jesus prayed three times to avoid the crucifixion. Three times He tried to get out of it. But after the third prayer, He knew that He had to go to the cross. So in Matthew 26:45-46 we see, “Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer.” After begging three times to have the cup pass from him, when he received confirmation this is the plan, he stepped forward in faith, and he never backed down. Let’s get up, the time is here. In the silence of not hearing from God, He received his answer, and He stepped out in faith, standing up to the challenge ahead. When you pray, be ready to step out in faith. Praying for ourselves isn’t like reading off our Christmas Wish List. But when we ask in confidence, according to his will, and we step out in faith no matter the answer, then our prayers for ourselves will be effective.
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