The Posture of Prayer
Closing the Sanctification Gap
Welcome to the Well Community Church. If we have not met yet, my name is Brad. I’m one of the elders and the lead pastor here. Typically, we pick a book of the Bible and cruise our way through it, but every so often, there’s an opportunity to pull out and deal with a specific subject matter. That’s where we are this week.
I’d like to give you a bunch of references today. We’re not really going to anchor down in one single text, though if you want to turn to 1 Thessalonians 5, that’s our jump-off point. I want to take the Bible as it relates to the issue of prayer and sift it down to ask some questions. Hopefully, we will leave here with a little bit more hope and even practice some things together that might change the way we consider prayer.
If you were with us last week, this is a bit of a review, but I want to catch everyone up because we are building on that foundation. Last week, we identified what we call the “sanctification gap.” It’s a fancy way of saying: I read the Bible and God says I should be awesome, yet the reality of my life is that I’m often not. That gap between God’s ideal and my current reality is the sanctification gap.
How do you close that gap? We said there are two critical moves. First, you have to embrace the Gospel. Following Jesus is not a works-based religion; there is nothing you or I do to earn our salvation. It is a gift. When you trust in Jesus, the Spirit of God is sealed inside of you. This means the engine driving transformation is not your discipline or a New Year’s resolution; it’s the Spirit of God doing a work inside of us.
Second, we need to present our wills to God. We need to be open to what He wants to do. Scripture tells us that what God has begun in us, He will be faithful to complete. This transformation is not done to us; it is done with us.
We talked about three expressions of the will. You can be “will-less,” where you don’t care about the things of God or are too burnt out to try. You can be “willful,” where you pull up your bootstraps and try really hard to be good. Most people bounce between these two extremes. We indulge the flesh, feel bad, and then yank ourselves over into being willful until that fails and we end up back at will-less.
I want to suggest a middle ground that is actually effective: being “willing.” It’s just being open to God. The metaphor we used was a dance. In the dance of change, God is leading. If we can just learn to follow Him, transformation comes, initiated and sustained by Him. We introduced a “prayer of intention”—the idea that when you wake up, instead of scrolling through the news or Instagram, you just open yourself to God and say, “God, I want to start my day with you.”
Praying Without Ceasing
If a prayer of intention to begin your day is good, what would it look like to do that throughout the day? What about at 9:00 AM in the break room? What about over lunch? That is where 1 Thessalonians 5 comes in. It’s a passage that is often quoted but incredibly convicting if you’re not comfortable with prayer.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NASB)
Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks. That’s a pretty high bar. I’ve been thinking about this idea of praying without ceasing. What does it look like to walk through a day with God at the center of everything we’re doing? If the Scripture says that in His presence is fullness of joy, wouldn’t it be good for us to actually seek that?
Thankfully, the Bible gives us a lot of information. There are over 3,500 verses regarding prayer. One reason people don’t want to talk about prayer is that it’s convicting. If you were an athletic team scouting most Christians, you’d find three common weak spots: evangelism, giving, and prayer. Very few people say, “I share my faith, give, and pray way too much.”
So let’s talk about the when, where, and how of prayer. When do you pray? The Bible gives us options. You can pray in the morning.
Psalms 5:3 (NASB)
In the morning, O LORD, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will order [my] [prayer] to You and [eagerly] watch.
You can pray in the afternoon. Acts 3 tells us Peter and John went to the temple at the ninth hour—3:00 PM—for the hour of prayer. You can also pray in the evening.
Matthew 14:23 (NASB)
After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone.
The point is, you can pray anytime and all the time. Where do you pray? People went to the temple, but Jesus also says to go into your inner room.
Matthew 6:6 (NASB)
’But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees [what is done] in secret will reward you.
You can pray outside on a mountain. You can pray anywhere and everywhere.
What about the posture? How do you sit or stand? Jesus looked into heaven and blessed the loaves, so you can pray with your eyes open. You can bow down in reverence.
Psalms 5:7 (NASB)
But as for me, by Your abundant lovingkindness I will enter Your house, At Your holy temple I will bow in reverence for You.
You can kneel, like Daniel did three times a day. You can pray with your hands lifted up.
Psalms 141:2 (NASB)
May my prayer be counted as incense before You; The lifting up of my hands as the evening offering.
You can lay prostrate with your face to the ground. You can cry out to God with a loud voice or pray standing or seated. The point is that there is no one “right” way to pray.
The Why of Prayer
The biggest question is: why do we pray? For many years, I prayed because I had things I wanted God to do for me. I had a three-ring binder with a list of requests and dates, as if God were obligated to my list. While there’s nothing wrong with specific requests, the primary reason we pray is to spend time with God.
Think about a relationship. If you go on a date and one person talks the entire time, is that connecting? No. Prayer is about a relationship with a God who wants to be with you. It is an expression of submission. Tim Keller once said that a prayerless person is a prideful person. If we never pray, we are essentially telling God we don’t need Him.
To whom do we pray? The Bible gives us a general pattern: we pray to the Father, by the Spirit, and through the name of the Son.
Matthew 6:9 (NASB)
’Pray, then, in this way: ’Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
Romans 8:26 (NASB)
In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for [us] with groanings too deep for words;
John 16:24 (NASB)
’Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.
Recently, I was on a biblical studies tour in Italy, and we visited the catacombs in Rome. I saw these early church frescoes from the first few centuries showing the posture of prayer. In these drawings, the people had their hands open and lifted. It struck me because the physical posture often indicates the posture of the heart. Folding your hands is fine, but it can feel a bit like a monologue. Open hands feel receptive. It reminded me that my heart needs to be receptive to God throughout the day.
Prayer is Not a Performance
Prayer is receptive. It’s a two-way relationship where you talk to God and let Him talk to you. This doesn’t usually mean an audible voice; often, it’s God speaking through His Word or the Holy Spirit interceding for us.
Prayer is also a response to love. We don’t pray so that God will love us; we pray because He already does. You aren’t trying to appease an angry deity. If you lose your temper in traffic, you don’t have to pray out of fear; you can just say, “Lord, I’m sorry. Thank you that you love me even in this.”
This also means prayer is not magic. You aren’t rubbing a genie’s lamp to get what you want. And prayer is certainly not a performance. There is a great book called Where Prayer Becomes Real that says prayer is not a place to be good, but a place to be honest. It’s not a place to prove your worth, but to receive it. Jesus warned us not to be like the hypocrites who pray just to be seen by men.
Matthew 6:5-8 (NASB)
’When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. ’But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees [what is done] in secret will reward you. ’And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. ’So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
In our context, that means you don’t have to use “churchy” language. Just be you. A false self cannot be loved and cannot love. Why would we seek to be anyone other than who we really are before God?
In fact, prayer will often reveal the “ugly.” When you sit in silence, your mind might wander to a fantasy, a past sin, or a deep-seated anxiety. Instead of shaming yourself and trying to “stop it,” just be honest. “God, that thought is in my mind. I know it’s not of You. Thank You that You love me anyway. I want to come back to You.”
Don’t be surprised if your mind jumps around like monkeys in a banana tree. Just acknowledge it. If you have an urge to check your bank balance, it might show you where your anxiety lies. Talk to God about it.
Paul the Apostle had a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him from exalting himself. He prayed three times for it to be removed, and God said no.
2 Corinthians 12:8-9 (NASB)
Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
When your mind wanders in prayer, it’s a reminder that you need the Lord. It’s a thorn that brings you back to the Gospel. Prayer is a place to be honest, not perfect.
Psalms 38:1-2 (NASB)
A Psalm of David, for a memorial. O LORD, rebuke me not in Your wrath, And chasten me not in Your burning anger. For Your arrows have sunk deep into me, And Your hand has pressed down on me.
Three Rhythms for the Day
I want to encourage you to create a daily rhythm. We talked about the prayer of intention in the morning. I want to show you two more: the prayer of recollection and the prayer of examine.
A prayer of recollection is simply an opportunity to recount what God has done. We get so busy grinding through work that we forget to look for Him.
Psalms 63:6-8 (NASB)
When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches, For You have been my help, And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy. My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.
Before you go to bed, take five minutes to think: “Where did I see God’s grace today?” I like to power down my electronics, make some sleepy tea—yes, a ginormous man drinking sleepy tea, I’m not ashamed—and just remember. I usually have about three minutes before I fall asleep, but I use those minutes to say, “God, I saw You in the rain we needed. I saw You in that small moment.”
The third is the prayer of examine. This one takes a little courage.
Psalms 139:23-24 (NASB)
Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.
This is where you ask, “Lord, what is happening in my heart that isn’t right?” You might need a little more time for this—maybe on a Friday afternoon or a Saturday morning over coffee. Ask God if there is any work the Gospel needs to do in your heart because you’ve drifted.
The goal of all of these—intention, recollection, and examine—is to open yourself to God. I find that my mind quiets when my body is busy, so I go on what I call “old man walks” around Chestnut and Shepherd. I just enjoy the Lord.
If you haven’t trusted Christ yet, your prayer might simply be: “God, are You who You say You are?” If you feel a nudge to seek Him, that is the Spirit of God awakening you.
Here is your homework: pick one of these—recollection or examine—and try it this week. Write down how it felt and talk to a friend about it. See what happens when you learn to be quiet before the Lord. Shut off the radio, the TV, and the phone. Let’s be a people who truly interacts with God.
Father, we thank You that we can approach You with confidence because of Christ. We don’t have to be ashamed. Lord, we want to be with You. We know that in Your presence is fullness of joy. Meet us in these moments as we pray. If this is a muscle that is a little sore from exercise, let us be sore together as we seek a freshness with You. Thank You for being a God who is both the Creator of the universe and an intimate Father who wants a relationship with us. In Jesus’ name, amen.