Let's turn in the word of the Lord, our God, to James chapter 5. The epistle to James, somewhat near the end of the New Testament, before Peter's epistles, the last chapter of James' letter, James 5. Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. We have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth. and the cries of them which have wreathed are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton. Ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and have long patience for it until you receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned. Behold, a judge standeth before the door. Take, my brethren, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering, affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy, which endure. You have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath, but let your yea be yea and your nay, nay, lest you fall into condemnation. Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And a prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. And it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him, let him know that he which converted the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. Let's turn to the Lord and pray for his blessing upon our worship. Beloved in the Lord Jesus, it is not uncommon, or to put it in the positive, it is fairly common for believers to struggle with prayer. And I don't mean that we don't pray enough or pray rightly, even though those are areas that we struggle with too. But believers are also sometimes tempted to question whether prayer actually makes any difference, whether prayer affects anything. We know, on the one hand, there are several good and powerful promises in God's word concerning prayer and things that are accomplished through prayer. We have examples in scripture. Doesn't it happen, although we know these promises are there, and we may even plead these promises, that unbelief so often is trying to get the upper hand and whisper in our ear there really is no point to praying. We might have asked ourselves on some occasion, why pray? After all, it kind of goes in our minds, if things are done according to God's perfect plan, if no one can change God's mind or alter His eternal degree, Well, what's the point of praying? Surely we can't change anything. We can't change God's mind. We can't change His decree. So really, is it important to pray? Does it serve any real purpose to pray? But beloved, let's take those questions head on and apply the Word of God to them. And if you are half as encouraged as I am just in the preparation of this message, then the work is well worth the preparation of it. And it's our prayer that God's word this afternoon will have a powerful and a lasting impression and help to all of us, fortifying our strength against unbelief and really seeing prayer in a more delightsome light. Our text for this afternoon is the last half of the 16th verse of James chapter 5. James 5, 16b. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. If you would please turn with me as we begin this consideration of prayer. Page 81 in the back of your Psalter book. We're going to consider Lord's Day 45 of the Catechism, and this afternoon just question and answer 116. 116 asks, why is prayer necessary for Christians? And the answer, because, number one, it is the chief part of thankfulness which God requires of us, and then secondly, because God will give His grace and Holy Spirit to those only who with sincere desires continually ask them of Him and are thankful for them. We're going to expand on this answer quite a bit. this afternoon, and even though as you look at your bulletin, six points may seem very daunting, they certainly seem that way to me. I thought we'd be looking at two or three sermons. Actually, we're going to cover all six, God willing, in one. We're going to cover each briefly, and I think you'll find, I hope you'll find that this approach, just hitting on some important points and then moving to the next, may actually help us in our prayer life. So the theme is why pray? And then six reasons. First, to praise and magnify the Lord. Secondly, to express our gratitude to God. Thirdly, to cultivate communion with God. Fourth, to align our hearts with God's will. Fifth, to purify our desires. And sixth, to ask for that which we need. And the order of these points is purposeful, as we're going to see that one builds and assists the other in succession. First, the book of James as a whole. James Epistle is a pretty hard-hitting book. If you've ever read it through, I'm sure there's times you pause and you can feel James speaking right at us. He is very direct, he is very blunt, he is very helpful. And he addresses actually many very vital issues that we deal with in day-to-day life. There's nothing theoretical, there's nothing esoteric, there's nothing pie-in-the-sky about James. He hits us right where it counts. He deals with the issues we struggle with day-to-day. He gives us crisp, brief, pointed counsel and instruction about these things. Now, having looked at the character a little bit of the book of James, James chapter 5 begins by writing to those who are wealthy. And not just wealthy people in general, but wealthy people who A. value their wealth too much, and B. people who abuse their position of prosperity, particularly treating their servants unjustly. Then James in the next couple of verses turns with words of comfort to those who are misused, to those who are taken advantage of, and encourages them in the Lord. And after moving through what follows, which are a few, we would say, general exhortations, how we should be toward one another, the blessings and benefits of patience, warnings about the giving of oaths, then we get to a section where James gives us several very brief and yet very pointed exhortations, very important ones. So for example, if you are afflicted, pray. If you are joyful, sing songs. If you are sick, call for the elders of the church. And as you look at this section with the pointed exhortations, one after another, then you start to see that in the middle of all of that runs this theme of prayer and its importance. And one of those encouraging highlights are the words of our text, the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. If there was ever a verse, beloved, in scripture that assures us that prayer matters, that prayer does things, that prayer is important, this is certainly one of them. And James speaks about an effectual prayer, a prayer that accomplishes things. And a prayer that avails much. So he's speaking about a prayer that has power. A prayer that works. A prayer that affects things. And it's our understanding of this. That will help us, I trust, so much to also value prayer. To not get stuck in questions like, well, what use is it? And what about God's sovereignty? And things that Satan would love to throw into our minds to completely shut down any desire to pray. So, we need to look at prayer by faith. So, the question that we're going to ask repeatedly this afternoon, why pray? In the first place, to praise and magnify the Lord. Now, it's interesting, the catechism we read a moment ago begins with the subject of prayer by beginning with thanksgiving. It says, it is the chief prayer of thankfulness which God requires of us. I'm going to submit to you, however, that before thanksgiving, In order for thanksgiving to be full and robust and genuine and full of life we ought to start elsewhere. Prayer should begin with praise and magnifying of the Lord and we have loads of scriptural encouragement to believe this. I'm just going to quote from a few of the songs and particularly the first verse of these psalms, to show how right away the psalmist begins, before he addresses anything, addressing praise to God. Psalm 9, the first verse, I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart. Psalm 33, verse 1, Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. Praise the Lord with the heart. Psalm 34, verse 1. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. 65. Praise waits for thee, O God, in Zion. 106. Praise ye the Lord. And then 111, 112, 113. All three. Praise ye the Lord. First words out of the psalmist's mouth. And we could really, literally go on and on and on, all afternoon, showing how very, very often the saints began their prayers with praise. In fact, our Savior teaches us this, doesn't he? In the Lord's Prayer, as we're going to see, God willing, in some weeks. Hence, our Father, He says, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. And beloved, as I was thinking about this, as I was preparing this, it's my heart's desire, would to God, that all of us made a conscious effort to begin our prayers with praise. Before asking God for anything, let's lift up the eyes of our faith to Him. Let us seek to become so lost in wonder as we contemplate the greatness and the glory of God. to just overflow with praise and to magnify the Lord with adoration. Why? Why do this? Why begin with praise? First of all and foremost, God is worthy to be praised. He is so great. He is so majestic. He is so blessed. He is worthy to be praised. Secondly, why begin with praise? When we lift up our hearts in prayer, in praise, in our thoughts to God first, that's going to help all the rest of our prayer. In what way? To find perspective. To place a context. To order our priorities aright. If we start with petitions without first, as it were, immersing ourselves in the greatness and the grandeur of God, then we start so low and we can easily resort to mechanism and to words and to not really thinking about what we're praying or saying just going through the motions because we don't have Him before our eyes and we don't have His glory to put into proper perspective the things about which we're praying how many times have we been really really burdened and we begin by pouring out our hearts before God and we really don't get much encouragement Now there is a blessing, to be sure, being able to pour out our hearts to Him. But if we can begin with Him. and to remind ourselves as we're praising Him. This is the God of the universe. This is the God who controls all things. This is the God who loves His people and who orchestrates everything for our good. And we begin to realize this is the God of infinite wisdom, infinite power, infinite might, infinite grace, infinite love for His own. And if we can just see ourselves aligned To Him as our Father and we as children, what a beginning that is. What courage that gives to come to Him with our needs. What encouragement that gives for us to believe that all things are resting with Him. And so let us seek to praise the Lord and not just say it, Not just kind of tack on the beginning of the prayer, some words of praise, but to really seek to praise the Lord. And if we can't get there, to stay there until we do. I forget which forefather it was, but they said, I come to the Lord in prayer when my heart is warmed. And I come to the Lord in prayer to warm my heart. In other words, even when we come lifeless and cold, and the last thing we can think of is pray, stay there before the Lord, contemplate the Lord, enumerate His excellencies in your mind, say them out loud before Him, and then burst into praise. Because it will leaven the entire rest of your prayer, of our prayer. Even if we don't utter words, even if we just sit before Him and we just take Him in, as it were, in our minds and let His greatness saturate our thoughts and even if you just have to sit before Him in silence and in wonder and adoration, do it. And I really do believe that if we could really do that, we would likely want to tarry longer and longer right there. We wouldn't be so quick to run off to our petitions and our requests and our problems. We'd want to just settle before the mount of His greatness and just encamp there for a while and just take Him in and just enjoy His presence and just magnify Him. And the greater He becomes in our minds and in our hearts and in our eyes, the better we are with the rest of our prayer. And I have to say that my limited experience about such things, as soon as my mind moves off of Him and on to other things, then I begin to sink in my prayers. It's good to tarry there a while. And as this other thing about praise beloved, this is a theme That will never end. There will come a day we don't have to ask the Lord for the things we ask Him for now. There will come a day we don't have to confess our sins to the Lord in prayer. There will come a day when lots of the things we pray about now, we will not have to pray, but there is never coming a day when we'll cease praising Him. There is never coming a day when we'll stop magnifying the Lord. This is going to be an eternal exercise of joy. So why not begin today? Why not begin now? Praise goes on and on. Revelation 19, this is the chorus. Praise our God, all ye his servants, all ye that fear him, small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, the voice of many waters, as the voice of mighty thunderings. Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice. You can just see the chorus of praise just running through and through the realms of glory. So let that chorus begin now, beloved, if it hasn't already in our hearts. Let it begin with us. Let us be known, I don't know much else about that church, but those people praise the Lord, and those people magnify the Lord, and those people esteem the Lord highly, and soberly, and joyfully. What a reputation that would be. Let us praise and magnify the Lord. Why pray? Well, to praise and magnify the Lord, and in the second place, to express our gratitude to God. You know, once we lift up, as it were, the eyes of our faith to God, once we begin to see something of His excellency, once we begin to praise Him, then I suggest it's an easy transition from that into thanksgiving. When we realize the wisdom of God, and the power of God, and the goodness of God, and then because of that, no matter what's going on around us, no matter what's happening to us, we realize who He is, and what He is, and what He is for us. Then no matter what's happening, no matter how painful, or difficult, or perplexing our situation might be, we may be confident in the Lord. Because of who He is. And because of what He says He is for us. So that means in times of prosperity, in times of need, in times of sorrow, in times of joy, in all things we may truly and should truly give thanks. Why give thanks in times of sorrow and need? Because our Father is in control. Because we know that His infinite wisdom far surpasses our finite insight into what's happening. We know that He is doing exactly what He said He would, orchestrating all things for our good, to conform us to the image of His Son. He is building His Kingdom continuously, no roadblocks, no detours, no impediments to Him. And as we begin to see that perspective, It puts our perplexities and struggles and difficulties into such a precious context. But if God's not at the forefront, if we're not praising and magnifying for his excellencies, then we'll be overwhelmed. And the best we can produce is lamentation and woe. And surely there is a place for lamentations and woe in our prayers, but not at the expense of praising and thanking the Lord. And let's also keep in mind that when we thank the Lord, what we're doing is we're not only acknowledging Him in all things, but we're also honoring Him in all things. We acknowledge He is the Giver of all. So whether it's fair weather or foul, whether it's prosperity or adversity, whether it's troubles or triumphs, all come from the hand of our Father. All come from the hand of our God. Now I recognize that if we're not a believer, we don't have these assurances. And that's a very good reason to be a believer. That we may know this God, and that we may love this God, and praise this God, and thank this God, and know that all things are working for our good. What an assurance that is! What an encouragement that is! And what a loss for not having that. Just a sheer uncertainty of our lives. and the eternal misery that we face every moment still whether we are a believer or not the truth is that we ought to thank the Lord for everything for the Lord is good And His mercy is everlasting and endures to all generations. The Lord, whether it benefits me personally or not, is not really the issue. That's how we selfishly tend to look at things. What's in this for me? How is He directing these things with regard to me? But we should thank the Lord that His grand purposes are being accomplished without question. That His kingdom is being built. That His people are being gathered and defended. That His name is being glorified. We can thank the Lord for that. if we can think of little else. So let's learn to be thankful for the blessings that we might overlook. How many passages in scripture begin with a good thanks unto the Lord, many of them adding, for He is good, for His mercy endureth forever. And I would suggest we need to literally train ourselves To begin to thank Him for things that we can easily bypass in our dear lives. Things we take for granted, we don't even notice anymore. The so-called little things of life. If we could begin to start noticing these, and begin to learn to praise and to thank Him for small matters. What that does, beloved, it begins to cultivate an ongoing attitude of thankfulness in our lives. And that will show. But we have to start looking for these things. We can't just praise Him for the gigantic things in life. But we need to begin to cultivate an ongoing sense of gratitude. I'm sure I told you about that one elder that I knew some years ago. I think he's still alive. The most thankful man I ever met. In loss, in prosperity, whatever the conversation would be, he always found reasons to praise and to thank the Lord. Astounding man. And Paul was just such a man. You read the letter to the Corinthians, the church was racked with problems of all kinds and severe, but Paul found room in that letter multiple times to get thanks to God for this, that and the other thing. And we would be different people, beloved, if we were thankful people. And we're thankful people because we started with praise and we saw the greatness of God and how that permeates everything. That frees us to be thankful. If we don't see God, thankfulness is going to be artificial or forced. Now let me break this down into some very simple thoughts. What a mercy it is when we begin to see congregation, the Lord, in literally everything. And acknowledge that He is there. To acknowledge that He is involved in everything. So that our pain is not quite as painful if we know, consciously know, that our Heavenly Father is using that pain to make us more like Himself. And if we lack something, it's because He personally, as our Father, is wetting our appetite for something greater. Wetting our appetite for glory. And may we not thank Him for just being who He is, for being our God, for showing His way of salvation to us, for not sparing His only begotten Son, but delivering Him up for us all in order to accomplish salvation. Can we not thank Him, all of us thank Him, for keeping us from so many evils, leading us every step of our lives by His Word, by His providence, by other Christians. Can't we thank Him for restraining us when we needed it and encouraging us when we were brought low? Can't we thank Him for accompanying us, for walking with us through our sorrows, for being with us in our joys, for carrying us when we felt we couldn't take another step in spiritual life? Beloved, thanks be to God for who He is. Thanks be to God for what He does. And if you can't find things to thank Him for, please start praying. Lord, open my eyes to see and my heart to acknowledge the greatness of what you're doing. Literally, we can look anywhere at anything and find reasons to thank the Lord for it. So why pray? We saw first of all to praise the Lord, for He is worthy and it does us good. Secondly, to thank the Lord, to cultivate a life and a heart of thankfulness for all things. Thirdly, to cultivate communion with God. And I think you can almost anticipate this point, can't you? As you begin contemplating the greatness of God, and really contemplate the greatness of God, and stay there, don't just mumble some introductory words and move on to the petitions. But if you camp out there before the greatness of God, and if you're pouring out your heart in thanksgiving to Him, you already see what's beginning to happen. You're beginning by your very prayer life to cultivate communion with God. So what I'm not talking about in this third part is praying for communion with God. What I am talking about is prayer as communion with God. What actually does it mean to walk with God? Isn't it to have a running, conscious conversation with the Holy One? Telling Him all things. pouring out our hearts to Him, holding nothing back, asking for His help, looking for His guidance, pleading for His strength, seeking for His wisdom, telling Him how we miss Him, how we love Him, how we desire Him, how we want to be better for Him, how we want to serve Him better, how we thank Him, how we praise Him, how we love Him. Can we see that as this undercurrent of prayer is coursing through our hearts, coming into our minds here and there and somewhere else, combined with praise, combined with thanks, what a foundation that lays for a life of fellowship with God. A praying person is a person living near to God. They're the same thing. A prayerless person is a prayer living far from God, no matter what else. It is such a shameful thing that many of us, myself included, can and do live so much of our lives without the Lord. How many things don't we speak to the Lord about? We've got it all under control, just the big things, the hard things, the things we give up on, that we finally realize we can't do. Those we'll bring to the Lord. Do you realize what we're depriving ourselves of when we do that? Okay, so maybe we can fix it ourselves. Maybe we can handle it ourselves. What are we missing though? We're missing the Lord. We're missing going to Him, speaking to Him, asking His approval, questioning our own wisdom, guide me if I'm mistaken. What an opportunity this is that we just pass by. And the reason is because we think we can do it ourselves. And yet he's told us, has any point blank without me, you can do nothing. In other words, nothing truly pleasing in my sight. He wants to. He invites us into prayer. And let me just turn it all the way around. And I ask myself the same question. Because it's really, it's a shameful thing to have to say. What is it about God that doesn't invite communion with Him? What reasons can we find in God for not wanting to be with Him? For not wanting to talk to Him? For not wanting to have this running conversation? He didn't say, don't pray. Or He never said, that's enough now. We need to get back in touch later. He never limits prayer from His side. We're the ones. We're the ones too busy, we're the ones not important enough, we have so many other things to think about, and so on and so on and so on. We're always coming up with reasons not to have communion with Him. And when you think about it from that perspective, how utterly shameful, and how utterly detrimental to ourselves. He invites us to come, come unto me all ye that labor. Give me your petitions. Ask of me and it shall be given to you. Pray without ceasing. The open invitation is there. The way to approach is there. He's given his son. He's paved the way. He's opened the door. And we're the ones standing around the door wondering what else we could be doing with our time. Why is it that the second person of the Trinity became man who suffered so much? Recently we saw that the ultimate goal is God clearing the way so that we could have communion with Him justly. And doesn't it strike it as odd and very sad that this is His desire on record, this is His will and He spared no expense so that we could have communion with Him. That's from His side. And yet how disproportionately little do most of us desire Him, desire to spend time with Him, even though we are so privileged to have that open door. James chapter 4 verse 8 says, draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you. And what other way would we draw nigh to God, draw near to God, except through the means of prayer and meditation? Talk to the Lord, beloved, often. Tell Him everything. Or just be there before Him and worship Him. Be reverent, yes. For He is worthy, but be open. Be direct. The psalmist was direct in telling his woes and laying out his needs before God. open your mouth wide, and God will fill it. We should inquire of Him for all that we need. We should ask Him, even for our daily bread, for daily wisdom. Why else would scripture say, why else, let me put it this way, would God say to us in scripture, pray without ceasing. Can I translate that? See me every day. Come to me every day. Talk to me every day. We look at Pray Without Ceasing as a duty. Did you ever look at it as an invitation? My door is always open. You can come to me continuously. I'm never weary with your coming. Even if it's about the same things a thousand times. Doesn't he say in the Song of Solomon, which is so precious, 2.14, this is him to his bride, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice. How sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. As he looks at us through Christ, he says, my beloved, I love to hear your voice. I want to see your face. If Joseph could say to his brothers, When He finally revealed who He was to them, come near to Me in order to comfort them, to reassure them of His love, that they shouldn't be caring about His revenge, because He wasn't planning on revenge. And surely God, as He bids us to come to Him, He reassures us of His love and of His care for us. Why pray? Praise the Lord. Thank the Lord. Cultivate communion with the Lord. And in the fourth place, to align our hearts with God's will. When we ask the question, does prayer do anything? Then we have to answer, indeed it does. It does something to us. Think this through, when we come to God asking, and I mean sincerely asking, humbly asking, submissively asking, asking but deferring to the Lord's wisdom as we ask, then little by little the Lord will use that means of coming and asking. to sweetly bring our will into line with His will. When we don't ask, what we do is we set our will over here and we do it. Or we come to Him and want Him to rubber stamp our will. But when we sincerely pray, when we sincerely ask, when we lay our desires open before Him, when we acknowledge His wisdom and sovereignty, Lord, this is how I see it, but do what pleases Thee and glorifies Thee without Any exception, little by little, that very exercise of submissive prayer will bring us into alignment with His will. There are Christians who look at the promises, certain promises about prayer, you know, the ones, whatsoever you ask in my name, believing you shall have it, promises like that. They think, well, we have an open-ended blank check with the Lord, but we can't do that congregation, we have to take what He says in totality. And that's not to discourage you, it's to encourage you. Because that wonderful promise is connected to other wonderful promises like this one. Romans 8.27 says, that the Spirit makes intercession, in other words, prays for us, and it goes on to say, according to the will of God. Now have you ever thought about that? So we're sitting there praying and maybe our prayers are off the mark. The Spirit takes those prayers and He turns those prayers and He sends them up to the Father correct. He intercedes for us from within us according to the will of God. Now from our end, 1 John 5.14 says the same thing from our direction. John writes, this is the confidence we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. We ought not to be discouraged by that. All John is saying, all Romans are saying, is if our prayers lie within the boundaries of God's revealed will, we have utmost confidence. When do we not have confidence? When we're praying about things about which He hasn't promised, about which we don't actually know what His will will be, so we pray for someone who's sick. We do have the promise, we just read it in James, the prayer of the elders, if by faith we'll raise up the sick. That was never meant to be an invariable, isolated passage that happens every time exactly as stated there. Sometimes, like in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Lazarus dies. And he's taken up to glory. There's a time when God calls His children home. If all it took was faithful prayer to keep us from being sick, nobody with enough faith would ever die. That's obviously not the will of God. So as we pray, the question we should be asking ourselves, am I praying something that fits within the boundaries of the will of God? And that means, beloved, and I don't mean to be an impediment here to your prayer life, but we need to think about what we pray about. Maybe before we pray it. Jonathan Edwards had a marvelous bit of advice there. He said when he came to pray, he did not start praying. He started by thinking what he would pray. He began to formulate in his mind what sorts of things he would pray for. Now to us maybe that seems very encumbering, but I think it's very wise. Because the confidence lies in the fact are we praying about things that lie within the boundaries of God's revealed will. And that's why praying about all kinds of frivolous things and foolish things and sometimes these obscure material things really have nothing to do with anything. The promises are not applying to things like that. But give us this day our daily bread. We know when we pray that we're square in the middle of Jesus' revealed will for us in prayer. And there's one more thing. As we gaze by faith into the blessed face of our Heavenly Father, as we lift up our hearts to Him, Isn't the very process of looking to Him and gazing upon Him and taking Him in as we talked about before, doesn't that in itself mold us and shape us and conform us to His blessed image? And that's the way He leads us over the course of time, over the course of days, over the course of years. Little by little we are taught by the Lord in providence by other Christians, informed by His Word, By promptings of the Spirit, we're taught more and more how to pray, what things to pray for, what petitions please Him, what petitions honor Him, and which ones, though perhaps sincerely prayed, are actually just selfishness. And what a blessing it is, beloved, to have our hearts aligned with God's will. What does it mean to be conformed to the image of God, to the image of His Son Jesus Christ, if that conforming doesn't begin in my heart and in my will? So we can ask Him to teach us, to send His Spirit to help us, to learn a lot from the prayers of Scripture themselves. To look at the prayers of Moses, to look at the prayers of the Psalmist, to look at the prayers of the Apostle, to look at Jesus' prayers. and learn what kinds of things they brought before the Lord, and in what kinds of ways did they bring them before the Lord, and let's learn from the Word of God to pray this way. Jesus' own recorded prayers can be so instructive. We should be asking ourselves, what occupied His mind in prayer? What were the things that were important to Him in prayer, and to others? That's just some of the ways to learn His will and to discipline our lives, our minds, our wills to be aligned with His. We want to get to the point, beloved, not only that our wills are aligned with His will, but that we delight in His will. That we can actually pray with 100% sincerity, Thy will be done. That we don't just submit by brute force because we have no alternative, but that we embrace what is happening to us no matter how difficult or hard to understand. This is my Father's will. He cares for me. He guides me. I trust your infinite wisdom, Lord. You are in control. I embrace this as my own. I think it would be very hard to complain. If we could carry this attitude with us throughout our lives, then nothing is against us, everything is for us, if we rightly see it. Because no man controls us, only the Father does. Because He controls all men. He controls all things. And His promises stand in stark contrast to the threatenings of feeble men. So we pray to praise Him, we pray to thank Him, we pray to cultivate communion with Him and we pray that our wills may be aligned with His and the very act of praying and the frequency with which we pray, that alone will assist in that. And then fifthly, we pray to purify our desires. Now we're taking a step further in, further down into the depths of our heart. And I say this is related to the last thing this way. If we learn to ask the Lord, rather than just go ahead and do stuff, do what we think, what we like, acquire what we want, when we want it. We should be able to see that if we bring everything to Him, if we begin like a little child, is this okay Father? Does this have your approval Lord? Would this be the wise thing to do? Lord, direct me otherwise, if I'm in the wrong way here, even though I may not see it. Do you see that over time, as we bring things before Him, it's going to weed out, if I can use that word, it's going to weed out that which is foolish, that which is trivial, that which is injurious, that which is God-honoring. In other words, why don't we as children always ask our parents for approval about things? Because we're afraid of not having their approval about it. But let's just say you had a perfect parent, perfect parent, whose wisdom you trust absolutely at all times. They've never disappointed you with their wisdom and insight and love and care. Why? I think we'd run to them with everything. What do you think of this dad? How about this mom? I really value you. I mean you've always gotten it right. Well none of us parents are like that. But we do have a father who is. And isn't the problem we don't come because maybe we really want a certain thing a certain way and we would sure hate if he said it has to be somewhere else. But really when we begin by magnifying the Lord and just drenching ourselves in His perfections and His infinite wisdom and everything else about Him, why would we not say, Lord, here's everything. You just run everything. And I'm not saying you're going to be waiting for these audible answers to make all these decisions in life, but just the exercise of bringing everything to him, the honor that you give him by doing so, is going to have a purifying effect on the very things you bring. And that's a very good thing for us. The more we bring before His holy face, the more the brightness of that holiness is going to chase away petitions that should never have existed in the first place. And think about it from the opposite perspective. If we seldom have communion with God, if we seldom offer up to Him our hopes and our desires and our intentions and our wills, then what do we do? We tend to just barge ahead. I mean, who else is there? If God's kind of out of the picture, except when I'm in a big, big problem, and I'm the only one here, and I've got to rely on my wisdom and my ancestral, I'm just going to keep going, and I'm going to keep going, and I'm just going to keep making decisions, and charting the course of my life, and insisting that it has to be this way, and that thing, and some other relationship, and everything else, then you're going to miss the sweet, purifying influence of bringing all to Him first. I have come to believe, at least for myself and perhaps for you, that if we are lacking substantial progress in the life of sanctification, becoming more holy, it's simply because we don't pray as much as we should. And we don't pray as much as we could. We don't have our desires put in check by laying them out before the Lord first and submitting ourselves without question to His dealings. And do you think for a minute that if you sincerely brought everything to Him that He's either going to ignore you or lead you astray? Do you not see how He's honored by doing so and He's pleased to guide us, to show us the way? to give us light. You know, we look at some of these great persons in scriptures, these great men of faith, the Daniels and the Pauls and everything else. We think, wow, I wish it could be like that. Look how close to the Lord and how holy their lives. That wasn't by accident. Look at the paralyzed of these men. I marvel. A man like Paul, he's stalling everywhere, traveling on foot, shipwrecked, stoning, you know, the burden of all the churches on his heart, and you find everywhere in his epistles, I'm remembering you always in my prayers, and I give thanks at every remembrance of you. The man's praying, it seems like all the time, and yet he's working all the time. Daniel, laws notwithstanding, he prayed. He set times for day. Nothing was going to get in the way, even if that meant imprisonment. That's how important spending time with his God was. Why is it a surprise the man was holy and strong and faith-filled? He spent time with his God. He abode in the vine as a branch well fixed and well nourished. Now it may be that we are sometimes reluctant to have our desires purified. Maybe we want something so badly or love something so much, we're not willing to open our hands to God. But that's really sad. So in other words, we can't trust God with the most important things in our lives. There's certain things I want so badly that somehow I can't trust Him to handle them. Sounds like pride to me. The stuff that really matters to me, Lord, I'll take care of it. The stuff that I don't care how it turns out, I'll give that to you. Beloved, that's not right. We cannot feel safer keeping our desires ourselves than handing them over to the Lord. I think we realize, don't we, deep down inside our hearts, we start to know that some of our desires simply would not stand the scrutinizing sight of God if we brought them before Him. Now mind you, beloved, we are speaking about prayer this afternoon. Please realize that when I'm talking about prayer, I'm not talking about some mechanical hypocrisy. I'm not talking about the kinds of prayers the Pharisees did just standing there and speaking and trying to make an impression. We're talking about honest prayer. We're talking about gritty prayer. We're talking about grace-influenced prayer, the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man. And I am quite confident that if we would praise Him more and thank Him more and cultivate communion by prayer more, have our wills aligned more to His, then just that alone will do amazing good to purifying our desires. Both the desires we bring to Him in prayer and the desires we harbor in our hearts. Before we consider asking for that which we need, let's sing. O Lord, make haste to hear my cry, to Thee I call, on Thee rely. Incline to me a gracious ear, and when I call, in mercy hear. 386, 1-6 It's only deep into the Lord's Prayer that we find any petition concerning our daily needs. Now on the one hand there are May we put it this way, more important things to pray first. On the other hand, Jesus is teaching us by the petition, give us this day our daily bread, there's nothing too little. Even though something may not be the most important, that doesn't mean it can't be included. There's nothing too little to pray for. Now I'm not suggesting that praying for our temporal needs is maybe a minor matter or not important. I am saying, if we would exercise ourselves in the other categories of prayer we talked about, if we would follow the Lord's blueprint of prayer and the Lord's prayer and the categories He addresses, if we would begin with those and sincerely enter into those in our prayers, then our daily needs will appear to be relatively minor. And concerning them we'll have great confidence. Because if we're talking about the Lord's kingdom coming and His will being done throughout the earth as it is in heaven, it doesn't leave room for a lot of doubt that He'll take care of the needs of His people when they call unto Him about them. And after all, we have the Lord's promises concerning our daily needs. We have the assurance that if we seek His kingdom and righteousness first, these things will be added to us. We may ask, but His care for us, and let me underscore this, we may ask for daily needs, but His care for us in that way is not dependent on our asking. Our praying for daily needs, quite honestly, congregation, is more of a reminder to ourselves how dependent we are on the Lord for them. Rather than having to remind God that we have these needs in the first place. We don't need to do that. How precious are those words, Your Heavenly Father knows. You have need of it before you even ask. There's something so comforting in that, isn't there? My Father knows. He knows what I'm going through. He knows what I need way before I ever open my mouth. We can rest in that. Because if Father knows, that's all who needs to know. And so when we ask, we're just reaffirming in our minds, from Thee is my fruit found. You are the one to whom I look for all blessings that I need. And so, as we trace our blessings to Him in the way of thankfulness, then we learn to rest our needs in His care. You see how that works? It's cyclical. If we thank Him for everything, then we're already connecting in our minds, not to mention in the minds of our children who are listening to these prayers sometimes. If we're constantly connecting all kinds of things to the Lord by way of thankfulness, including difficulties, Do you see how that automatically, by virtue of doing that, builds a certain confidence in His care for us? Because we're seeing it more. Remember last week, Psalm 13, how it so helped the psalmist to look back. I have trusted in thy mercy. If we're thanking God for so many things during the day, if we're seeing God's hand more than we have before, Don't you think that leaves, as it were, a paper trail of His goodness to us that will instill confidence in His supply for the present? If He withholds something, it's for our good. If He gives something, it's for our good. Even His chastenings are tailor-made, designed for our good. So why pray? Well, we have lots of reasons, actually, beloved. Only a few of which we've considered this afternoon. We praise Him, we thank Him. We want to pray in order to commune with Him more, to cultivate a life of communion. We want to bring everything, our desires, our wills, so that they'd be aligned and our desires purified before His holy face. And yes, we may ask Him. for the things which we need, but we ask Him with the utmost confidence that our Heavenly Father knows and will supply in His time and in His way according to His infinite wisdom and grace. So by way of summary, congregation, our not praying is just loss. It's our loss. We miss so much not drawing near to this infinitely good being. We lose so much not coming to this incredibly, unendingly loving Father. We have such loss not coming to a Savior who gave Himself for us, to a Spirit who condescends so much to live inside of us as believers. Now I'm guessing there may be one or two or many of you thinking, but how do we know His answers? How do we discern? We do all these things toward Him, what about the reverse? Well, as I've been preaching, it's been impressed on my mind, that ought to be next week. Next week's subject. Let's turn it around and say, okay now, these things being so, how may we anticipate and answer? to prayer. Or as Thomas Goodwin once wrote, the return of prayers. How do those prayers return into our bosom? Well, God willing, I have my work cut out for me for next week in that respect. Even though it doesn't exactly fit into the catechism, Lord say that's okay. So we pray beloved to praise. We pray beloved to thank. We pray to draw near and to stay near to Him, to be molded and conformed more and more to Him, to be purified and supplied. And we pray, Lord, help us ongoing to pray in a more glorifying way each and every time. And please hear us. For Jesus' sake. Amen. Let's pray.