The Power of the Gospel in Prayer

Seeking Christ in All His Fullness As the Answer to Sin and Misery

Good Morning,

Delivering our sins unto the Lord can be emotionally, mentally, and spiritually draining. Being honest with God can hurt at times. Opening ourselves up to the exposure of our unworthiness to the holy and righteous One takes a lot of trust. Often our heart’s desire is to hide. That’s often what we see even good men do in the Bible. Adam leads Eve to go behind the bushes. Abraham tries to act like he didn’t just lie to Abimelech. Peter swears he won’t deny Jesus. Yet, in the midst of all of this our lesson from the Directory of Public Worship regarding prayer is to remind us of something that is central to our faith, and that is that Christ forgives sin.

That seems a like an obvious thing to confess, but we often don’t because we don’t really see ourselves as needing forgiveness. We ask for it because we are supposed to. It’s kind of like when your mom used to make you say you were sorry to a sibling or a neighbor. We do it, but don’t mean it. The reason we hesitate is for the same reason we don’t with God, we know we were in the right. It is not until men and women comprehend their weakness and like the women with the issue of blood, seek Christ, that we will ever really know what it means to be forgiven ourselves. Part of praying is learning. The DPW calls us to ask Jesus for help in this work.

Let’s read today’s selection:

Notwithstanding all which, to draw near to the throne of grace, encouraging ourselves with hope of a gracious answer of our prayers, in the riches and all-sufficiency of that only one oblation, the satisfaction and intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ, at the right hand of his Father and our Father; and in confidence of the exceeding great and precious promises of mercy and grace in the new covenant, through the same Mediator thereof, to deprecate the heavy wrath and curse of God, which we are not able to avoid, or bear; and humbly and earnestly to supplicate for mercy, in the free and full remission of all our sins, and that only for the bitter sufferings and precious merits of that our only Saviour Jesus Christ.

That the Lord would vouchsafe to shed abroad his love in our hearts by the Holy Ghost; seal unto us, by the same Spirit of adoption, the full assurance of our pardon and reconciliation; comfort all that mourn in Zion, speak peace to the wounded and troubled spirit, and bind up the broken-hearted: and as for secure and presumptuous sinners, that he would open their eyes, convince their consciences, and turn them from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they also may receive forgiveness of sin, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in Christ Jesus.

When the apostle James commends to us the power of prayer in his letter he notes, “. . . God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” That move towards meekness is what Jesus Himself says in the Sermon On the Mount about those who inherit the Earth. If we would be in the kingdom we must recognize the terms of admittance. Christ came to save those in need of a physician, and since sinners are clinically dead, they seem to fit the bill. The more we call out unto the Lord and see His goodness to us the more we will be at peace in asking Him to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. There is an irony pointed out for us by Paul in Romans 7 about as we grow in sanctification we become more and more aware of our need of sanctification.

The gospel saturates the words of this part of the DPW because the gospel is part and parcel of the language of the true Christian. We receive encouragement in our prayer through the knowledge of the grace of Jesus to us. As we remember the cross, the empty tomb, and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our beseeching the Lord our hearts are built up in its power. We feel the binding up of the brokenhearted. There is a real pleasure to prayer that meditates on the complete work of our Redeemer. Sometimes I think we have trouble with supplications due to the fact we have convinced ourselves it is boring, which seems to be the enemy of the twenty-first century human. To be honest, why should we expect it not to be dull when we come to God without considering first His person and work? If we think we are talking to a recording or to someone at prayer phone bank our heart is not going to be in it, far from it. However...

That the Lord would vouchsafe to shed abroad his love in our hearts by the Holy Ghost; seal unto us, by the same Spirit of adoption, the full assurance of our pardon and reconciliation; comfort all that mourn in Zion.

If the above is where our minds move in prayer then how could it ever not be a good time? We need our Lord. We must speak unto Him, reminding our heart, as much as resting on the promises, that the Second Person of the Holy Trinity has been born of a virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, He descended into Hell, and on the third day rose again from the dead from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

Christ’s labor of love exhibited in these active works is the pure act through which we have the right and the privilege to come and speak to the one who made the Heavens and the Earth. In a sense to put a common put-down on its head, we get to not only speak to the manager, but He fixes the problem. This is the access we have in prayer, and why we must retain Jesus as we seek His face in our quiet times.

In closing, while we have spent most of our time thinking about our personal prayers to God we have to keep in mind that this is also primarily speaking about the Pastoral Prayer. A good corporate time of devotion in the middle of the morning and evening worship service will in many ways preach the gospel just as much as the sermon. Modeling how to pray is an important part of a minister’s call. Think of how Paul in his opening words to Timothy speaks of himself as the chief of sinners. He does that not to boast in his badness, but to show the majesty of Christ in forgiving such an evil man as he. Here we see yet another way that the Pastoral Prayer is participatory for all present, even if only the minister is openly talking during it.

Closing thought:

https://gentlereformation.com/2022/10/31/learning-to-pray-alert-to-harvest/

Blessings in Christ,

Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Pastor, Bethany ARP Church