Most Christians would agree that prayer is a primary discipline in their life. D.L. Moody said, “I’d rather be able to pray than be a great preacher. Jesus Christ never taught His disciples how to preach, but only how to pray.” Prayer is extremely important for the Christian, and we need to know why this is so. E.M. Bounds, speaking about the spiritual aspects of prayer, said, “If a person ceases to pray, he ceases to live.” Prayer is tied into our relationship with God and our salvation. Essentially, he says, to be saved means to be someone who prays. As we transition into a new year, we are compelled to make prayer our first fruit offering to God.

Pastor Matt Gutherie will be reviewing for us a book, Handbook for Praying Scripture, written by Professor William Varner of the Master’s University. This book instructs us on how to build discipline or structure into our prayer life. The thesis of this book is modeled after the prayer life of Martin Luther. Before Luther presented any of his requests to God, he began by reciting The Lord’s Prayer, then the Apostles Creed, and then the Ten Commandments. It is important that we know what prayer is and the reasons why we pray.

Most people would define prayer as talking to God or communing with God. We would also describe prayer as discipline. These are all true but there is another dynamic of prayer that we need to internalize and meditate on. This element will give depth, breadth, and zeal to our prayer life. Prayer, in its essence, is worship. The Bible gives us instructions on how to live, and Romans 12 helps us see that our entire life is worship.

Worship has two aspects. There is a public manner of worship that includes the way in which God wants His church to be governed, and specific things we should do, such as baptize believers and celebrate the Lord’s Supper, teaching of the Word and prayer, and how we interact with one another. A second aspect starts with us and God and the Scriptures. This is a personal desire to grow in holiness and righteousness, and it affects our interactions with each other and our corporate worship.

E.M. Bounds said, “Only by praying can we expect to know Him. And we will find in His presence a constant and ever-increasing delight.” Knowing God means entering into His presence, and when people meet God, they fall before Him in worship. Jesus’ worship of the Father is what motivated Jesus’ disciples to ask Him to teach them to pray. His disciples wanted to worship God in this same way as Jesus. Since prayer is worship, it is extremely important to God.

First Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to pray without ceasing, but what does this mean? According to E.M. Bounds, “What this means is that the soul which has come into intimate contact with God, in the silence of the prayer chamber, is never out of conscience touch with the Father. That the heart is always going out to Him in loving communion, and that the moment the mind is released from the task in which it is engaged, it returns as naturally to God as a bird does to its nest.” God wants us to live in constant, loving communion with Him. 

As God gives us instructions on His other commands, He gives us instructions on how to pray. In Matthew 6:7, He says, "And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” Rather than empty words, our prayers must be based on God’s character, His word, and truth, so that He is honored by our prayer. Jesus tells us in John 4:23 that, “true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” A major aspect of prayer important for us to understand is that God knows everything perfectly, past, present, and future.

The Omniscience of God

Acceptable prayer is predicated on the omniscience of God and, without this understanding our prayers bear little fruit. The omniscience of God should inform every aspect of our personal worship and should teach us how to respond to everything in life. The omniscience of God is the theological context of the Lord’s Prayer. The goal of the elders at Southside is that we would bear much fruit in prayer. In considering how the truth of Scripture informs our personal worship, and how God used His omniscience to teach His disciples to pray, will help us move into 2024 and bear much fruit in our prayer life.

Viewing prayer in light of God’s omniscience will help us put away the pious, superstitious, humanistic virtue that we call prayer. We think that things don’t happen because we don’t pray, and this is superstition. We think that Christians are obligated to pray, and this is pious virtue.  All of this is emptiness because it lacks a real zeal and love for God. We need to put off these aspects of prayer and put on a rich, fervent, zealous heart of worship. It is in this state of worship where our soul will effortlessly commune with the Transcendent, that we will find ourselves caught up in the intimacy of our love relationship with the Father. This is prayer! When we understand what undergirds prayer, we bow before Him and say, Our Father in heaven, then acceptable prayer will flow. 

Omniscience means all knowing; omni is without limit and science is knowledge. God’s knowledge is not limited in any way. He knows every detail about everything. Nothing is hidden from God; His knowledge is intuitive; He has never learned anything, and He will never forget anything. In the same way that God is I AM, His knowledge IS. God knows everything, always, and forever. 

God knows everything on a large scale, and He knows everything on a small scale. When Job was questioning God regarding his tribulations, God challenged him by asking him where he was when He laid the foundations of the earth, and where he was when He determined the boundaries of the oceans? (Job 38:4-8). Faced with an omniscient God, Job had no response. The immensity of God’s knowledge is shown in Psalm 147:4 which says of God, “He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.” We also see God’s knowledge on a small scale. Consider Psalm 139. Verses 1-2 say, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.” God not only knows when we sit or stand but also why we do these things; He discerns our thoughts. God’s discerning of our thoughts is the key to understanding this Psalm.  Verse 4 tells us that God knows the words we intend to speak even before we speak them. David acknowledged that God fully knows all the intentions of our heart.

In Isaiah 44:7-8, God asks, “Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen…” God is saying that He chose His people, that He determines the future, and He gave them prophets to declare future events, so that when their predictions came true, they would recognize God’s omniscience. We need to see that God’s omniscience is a comfort. God knows us and the intentions of our heart; God knows what we will face in the future, and He is preparing us for those moments. There is no fear in Him; there is neither sigh from sorrow nor joy that escapes God’s attention. 

The Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6:9-13, is set in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. In this prayer, Jesus is trying to make people understand that we have no self-righteousness, and that even when we approach worship it is often in a state of self-righteousness. It is because of what Jesus said earlier: “Pray then like this:” Jesus wants us to worship in a very specific way. God is omniscient, and He knows our needs before we ask (verse 8). We are instructed in verses 2-4 to give to the needy in secret, not to be seen by men; God knows your motive, and if pure, will reward you. Giving with a pure motive is a true act of worship. In verse 6, Jesus tells us to go into our closet to pray and shut the door. The idea is to be alone with God in an intimate setting. Verses 14-15 tell us that if we do not forgive those who trespass against us, God will not forgive us. Who will know whether we have forgiven someone – God knows! Verses 16-18 instruct us, when we fast, do not make it obvious to others; wash your face and do not look gloomy like hypocrites. These instructions define the proper setting for the actual prayer. Also, the Lord’s Prayer is hemmed in and underpinned by the omniscience of God.

A. Our Father in Heaven

The first facet of the Lord’s Prayer is “Our Father.” Because Jesus knows we are drawn to idol worship, He begins His teaching by directing His disciple’s focus to the Father. When Jesus says Father, He is basically saying, I’m ready to hear You. The title, Father, brings in the idea of love, compassion, care, and tenderness, which lead us to an affection for God. Regarding prayer as worship, A.W. Pink said, “Our worship should always include fervency, reverence, and confidence. In fact, the first word is designed by God to stir up each of these elements.” By addressing God as “Our Father in heaven” our thoughts are going up to Him. Whenever we think about the attributes of God, we are drawn to Him. It is the greatness of God that compels us to worship Him. When Isaiah had a vision of God on His throne in Isaiah 6, he said, “Wow is me!” He was undone by the greatness of God, His holiness, His worthiness, and His might. Our Father in heaven is where the prayer begins. It speaks of His power, providence, sovereignty, position, and His father figure. He has a plan and a will for each of us. This stirs up a reverence for God underpinned by His omniscience.

B. Hallowed be Your Name

When we understand who God is and what He has done, our natural response is that His glory should be seen everywhere. The Westminster Catechism states: “We plead that God, by His overruling providence, direct and dispose of all things to His own glory.” Hallowed means to be set apart, different from us, and Your name is I AM. Jesus is saying, separate is Your name, sacred is Your name, great is Your name, glory is Your name. Whenever we come before God in worship, we are to magnify His name; we want Him to have a prominent position in our life and in the church. We are asking God to enlarge our hearts to understand and love Him more. We need to understand the world around us and, since God is omniscient, we want to see all things as He sees them. He is holy while we are sinful, so we want Him to incline our will to His will. These personal desires apply to our church as well. We want God to open our eyes to the truth, to lead our church according to His will, to purge the sin from within us, to see as He sees, and for the prominence of God to be seen in our church. When people hear the name, Southside Church, we want them to know that we are a church that hallows God’s name.

C. Thy Kingdom Come

We desire that God’s name be hallowed and that comes to be as the kingdom of God begins to reign on earth. As we look forward to the second coming of Christ, we desire that the gospel go out to Clayton, Raleigh, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. We go out into the community as citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20), transferred from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of Christ (Colossians 1:13) with the desire to make the knowledge of salvation known across the globe. Matthew 6:33 commands us to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, so, we must, first, believe the gospel with our heart and grow in sanctification, then we take it to the world where it expands.

The kingdom expands through our ministries as we share the gospel. As believers, we recognize that the world system is against all that God desires. God is on His throne in heaven and that His will is obeyed perfectly, and we desire for the same on earth. We commit to using our energy to spread God’s kingdom until either we are called home or until Jesus returns. As a church we want to use all our energy and resources to the expansion of God’s kingdom. God knows all things, He is sovereign, and we want to serve Him by growing His kingdom on earth.

D. Your Will be Done

Since God is omniscient, our desire should be to elevate God’s will in our life. As finite beings, we need to bend our will to God’s. But this is the opposite of what we try to do in our prayers; we want Him to bend His will to meet our demands. Most of the time when we pray, we skip over honoring Him and jump right into asking Him to satisfy our desires, nearly all of which revolve around circumstances and relationships. God wants us to come before Him, recognizing Him as the object of worship, recognizing where He is, seeking for kingdom expansion, and desiring for His will to be done; then we present our requests. The requests that we make are often made without regard to His omniscience, then we tag on at the end Your will be done, whereas the omniscience of God should infuse the entire prayer. The hardest part of prayer is to express your desires to God, holding them loosely, while honestly desiring that His will be done.

We should have this attitude because God, in His omniscience, knows what is best. We should not try to usurp God’s authority by insisting that He bend His will to meet ours. This doesn’t mean that we should not persist in prayer, for in Matthew 7:7, Jesus said to keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. We persist until we know that our request is not in accordance with God’s will. Sometimes we ask God for things that are not in our best interest. When we pray, we need to remember that God is in heaven, that His will is being perfectly worked out there, and this should be our desire for earth. God has designed and ordained worship to align our hearts to His will, so that when people come in contact with us, they come in contact with Him.

God does not rebuke us for coming to Him with a heart of confusion or duress. We have lost the art of lamentations in our society where we grieve over things that are wrong. Job experienced great trials in life, and he accused God of not being concerned. Job wasn’t rebuked by God for voicing his complaints, but for thinking that he knew better than God. In Job 38:2 God said, "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” Jesus experienced far greater trials than anyone, including Job, when He was faced with going to the cross. At that moment in time, Jesus voiced the desire that, if there was any other way to redeem humanity, He did not want to go to the cross. He fell on His face before the Father and said, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." (Matthew 26:39) In our prayers, we should have the same attitude as Jesus, our perfect example.

When we face trials in life, we should approach God with a child-like faith, trusting that He knows best, thus we pray for God’s will to be done. We can be confused and anxious and, yet as we take it to God, be content, resting in His omniscience. But when we hold onto worry or anxiety, we are saying that God is unjust and we can best control our circumstances. Such an attitude shows that we don’t trust God’s omniscience. However, if we trust in God’s omniscience, we show our dependence upon Him, the One who supplies all our needs.

E. Give Us this Day our Daily Bread

We acknowledge God’s omniscience by depending on Him to supply our physical and spiritual needs. Sometimes we don’t like what God provides, especially if His Holy Spirit is convicting us of sin. We don’t like rebuke and would just prefer that God leave us alone; however, this would not lead to our sanctification. We rest in the knowledge that God is omniscient, so, in our circumstances and relationships, we ask Him to help us stand firm in our faith and respond in a way that reflects God’s character. Nothing surprises God, so we must seek to know what God is trying to teach us through difficult relationships and circumstances. This petition encompasses a supernatural dependence on God that is practical, emotional, and relational, and leads to our contentment. So, because God knows what we need spiritually, sometimes we must be content in conflict, sometimes in much, and sometimes in little. God sometimes uses the physical to drive the spiritual as He works out sanctification in us. 

F. Forgive us our Debts

This implies a comprehensive confession. Sometimes it is easy to hide our sins from each other but, because God is omniscient, we cannot hide them before Him. When we come before God in worship, we acknowledge who He is, where He is and we express a desire for His kingdom to come, for His will to be done, while admitting our dependence on Him. The next thing we should do is confess our sins to Him. God already knows our sin, and trying to hide it from Him is futile and it affects our relationship with Him. God wants us to have an open, honest, effortless, transparent confession before Him. David exhibited a true contrite spirit when he implored God to forgive him of the sins he didn’t even know whether or not he had committed. Any prayer we read in Scripture is always underpinned by the omniscience of God.

God’s omniscience should invoke our confession, but sometimes it invokes indifference. We may adopt the attitude that, since God already knows, we need not confess it. God wants our confession to be open and full. A full confession occurs when we read what God says about the sin and the associated heart attitude, then come to Him in confession of that sin. God has compassion on us when He sees our struggling with sin even though we sometimes fail. The world may only see our failure, but God sees who we truly are. Even Peter, in his colossal failures, tried to disconnect the omniscience of God, but God brought that back to him in his confession. Three times on the shore, Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him. Peter acknowledged that God knew everything, and Jesus said feed My sheep. If we have a contrite heart over our sin, we can be encouraged by Peter’s failure and restoration.

G. Lead us Not into Temptation, but Deliver Us from Evil

The Lord’s Prayer uses the foundation of divine omniscience to expose our need for spiritual deliverance. We understand that Satan is at work in the world, and we need to trust that God knows our weaknesses, our failures, and where we are tempted. In the midst of this, God has put His spirit within us to help in these trials. Sometimes we are distraught and overwhelmed by our failure, but we need to remember God’s omniscience and that He has promised to not give us more than we can handle; He can help us in overcoming weakness and sin. As we walk through dark valleys, God will keep us close and hold us steadfast in trials because He knows what is best for us and what we can endure, so we can proceed in life with peace; peace that comes as we mortify the flesh, peace as we see God deliver us from temptation, peace that comes as God strengthens our faith, and peace that comes from a vivified (renewed) spirit.

We can rest amid the work of the evil one because God prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies (Psalm 23). The pedestal of this table is the omniscience of God. We need to remember that the omniscience of God informs our personal worship and is the key to unlocking a fruitful prayer life. 

Selah:

1. Is knowing that God is omniscient a comfort for you? Why or why not? If so, how?

2. When you go to God in prayer, approximately what percent of time do you spend on expressing your needs to Him?

3. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your prayer life? What will you do to improve it?

4. Is there some area in your life where you don’t want God’s will to be done? If so, what, and why?