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Ask Pastor John
Breaking Prayer Ruts
00:12:37
How can we shift our prayers from rote repetition to an awareness of God’s larger purposes? Pastor John models praying Scripture back to God.
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Foreign.
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To pray in the morning, and before you know it, you're just kind of looping your requests, running through the same checklist in your mind that you've been praying through for weeks or months. You have a list of personal worries. You have concerns about the budget and bank accounts stresses at work. It's certainly not bad to pray over these things, but it can often feel like that's where your prayers default. They just get stuck there, becomes mechanical Today on Ask Pastor John Breaking out of prayer ruts and it's a good time to talk prayer because we are reading a lot of prayers in the Navigator's Bible reading plan these first few days of July especially. This includes the collective prayers of Israel in Psalms 123 to 126. And Paul tells us what he's praying for for the Colossian church. In Colossians 1, verses 3 to 14, we get his prayer list, which is very instructive for our own prayer lists. So how do we take what we read in the Bible and pray it up to go? The new question is from a young woman, Pastor John I have been trying to grow my prayer life, but honestly, it feels completely foreign to me to pray the Scriptures. Whenever I try to use the Bible while I pray, it feels like I'm just reading a textbook out loud to God. It feels fake and mechanical. My regular prayers usually just end up being vain repetitions where I just loop over my own private concerns. My work stresses my budget woes and the various anxieties of my life. In my late 20s, I want to care about God's larger purposes, but I don't know how to turn the Bible into my prayers. Can you teach me? It's a great question. Here's how Pastor John answered a man named Dalabor with this very question in 2017.
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I love this question because praying the Scriptures is so important in the Christian life. If we don't form the habit of praying the Scriptures, our prayers will almost certainly degenerate into vain repetitions that eventually revolve entirely around our immediate private concerns rather than God's larger purposes. So let me try to help Delabor see this as less foreign. He said it felt foreign to him. Let me see if I can help make it feel less foreign. First, we should notice that the early church prayed the scriptures in Acts 4:24, following in fact, they explicitly quote Scriptures, so the threats have been made against them. And it says they lifted their voices together to God and said, sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them. And they're exalting in what they know from God in Scripture. Verse 25, who through the mouth of our Father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, why did the Gentiles rage and the people's plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed, etc. So that's a quotation from Psalm 2. So we know that the early church prayed back to God the very words that God had given them, for example, in the Psalms. Here's the second thing. Don't forget the obvious, namely that many parts of the Scripture are prayers. So simply to read them is to pray if we're awake, if you're thinking about what you're doing. So Paul's got numerous prayers that he prays for the people that he's writing his letters to. Every time we read those, we should be praying with Paul. And a great portion of the Psalms are prayers. And Jesus gave us some prayers. I've used the acronym IOUs from the Psalms to guide how I pray the Scriptures. It says, I incline my heart to your testimony. Psalm 119, 36, O open my eyes to see wonderful things. Psalm 119, 18, you unite my heart to fear your name. Psalm 86, 11s. Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast, steadfast love. Psalm 90:14. So the scripture models for us how to pray about reading the Scriptures and turning them into prayers. And then think about this, which is so obvious. The Scriptures either tell us something about God and Christ when we're reading so that we can praise him, or they tell us something about what God and Christ and the Holy Spirit have done so that we can thank him and express faith in it. Or they tell us what God expects from us so that we can cry out for his help. Or they tell us about something we failed to do so that we can confess our sins. So it seems to me that virtually all of the Bible is doing one or more of those four things. Something about God, something about what he's done, something about what he expects, something about how we've failed so that they naturally lead into praise to God, thanks to God, crying for help to God, and confession of sin to God. So one caution here. Let's be realistic. What we are praying is the meaning of text, not just words. This is important. So, for example, when reading part of the Old Testament history book that takes a whole chapter to tell a story, say, about Ahab's wickedness, I Just read this morning about Ahab's wickedness. And I also read this morning a whole chapter about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego's faith and courage in front of that fiery furnace. Now, how do you pray scripture like that? You don't probably turn every verse into a prayer because it takes more than one verse to make a point. That's my point. We're praying, meaning we're not just praying words. And so you have to read enough of the Bible to catch the meaning. What's the author trying to say here about boldness and courage and faith in Daniel, chapter three? And so you might wait, you know, three or four minutes of reading and then pause and say, oh, God made me like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and forgive me for my pansy like, relation to feeling embarrassed or whatever. And same thing with Ahab. What a. I just got so mad at him this morning when he. When he took Naboth's vineyard and killed him. Oh, and the prophet came and really laid into him and told him we were going to be in big trouble. I mean, that. That's just. There's so much there to pray about. But you have to read the whole chapter before you can get it right in your head. Okay, so Dalabor asked me to do this, so I'm going to close by doing it. And I wanted to do a. A big section, but I realized it doesn't work. It doesn't work that way for me. So I'm just going to start with Colossians 2:6, because I've been in Colossians in my devotions, and I'm going to show you how I turn Colossians 2:6, following into prayer. And I'll break it up in two pieces. It just turned out that way. So here we go. This is reading Colossians 2:6. As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. Yes, Lord Jesus, I have received you, and I do receive you afresh right now, this morning, I welcome you to take full control of my life. If I am estranging you in any way, pushing you away at all, show me and help me to kill that sin. I want to witness walk in you in your power, in your way, in your fellowship. I dedicate myself to this right now again, just like I have so many times in the past. And I turn from all others anything else that would compete with you as my closest Friend and helper. You have given rootedness and foundation to my life. Thank you. I didn't create these roots in you or these great foundation stones of faith. You did that. Thank you. Thank you for sending teachers into my life. Thank you for my father and Daniel Fuller and Jonathan Edwards and John Owen and J.I. packer and R.C. sproul and dozens of partners in ministry over the years that have exhorted me and kept me on the narrow way. Oh, how I thank you, Lord. It has all been owing to you. My reaching you and my walking in you and my rootedness and foundation in you. It's all owing to you. All my teachers were from you. You are kind and merciful, a mighty God. I love you this morning. And then I keep reading. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy or empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ, for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. Lord Jesus, I'm not even sure I know what the elemental spirits of the world are, but until I find out, I pray that you would protect me from them. Your work in me is way more important than my perfect understanding. Guard me. But I know something of the dangers of human tradition and philosophy. I have felt the pull of forces away from you. Oh, thank you that I am still here right now, praying and not over the cliff of unbelief. Oh, give me discernment so I can see what is according to Christ. Like you said in the books that I read, in the TV shows, that I watch in the movies, in the news. Oh, Lord, these forces are so strong and I am so prone to be entertained by ideas and actions that are not according to Christ. Have mercy upon me and give me the courage to say no to anything that tends to undermine my fellowship with you and my boldness in witness. How could I ever be lured away, Lord? For in you is the whole fullness of the deity, Paul says, the whole fullness of deity dwelling bodily. Amazing. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. O Christ, help me all day, every day, this very day, to be more amazed at you and your fullness of deity that I will never turn away more amazed than I am at anything else. Let my amazement at your fullness of deity spill over at work today. Make me a means of others being amazed. Pray in Jesus name. Amen.
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Amen. Yeah, the trick isn't in just reciting words. It's about learning to pray, the meaning of the text up to God, whether it's praising God, thanking God, crying out to him for help or even in confessing to him our failures. It's all about letting the Bible shape our conversation with him. You read a passage like Paul's letter to the Colossians, and then you just talk back to God in what it says and what it means for you. It turns prayer from a monologue of personal grievances into this word saturated, joyful communion with the One who gave us his precious word. So good. If you have a question to ask Pastor John, find a link to email us and find our complete episode archive at the same place@askpastorjohn.com transcripts of every one of our 2,268 episodes, fully transcribed, fully available right there@askpasterjohn.com Pastor John rejoins us in the studio next week. When your pastor feels distant, that's next. I'm Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here on Monday.