Pray or Praise?

Pastor Schreiner yesterday finished up Ephesians, starting from 6:18 and ending the book. Most of the time of the sermon was spent talking about prayer. In it he made some good points, but one struck me as alarming true.

I have heard it said, and Pastor Schreiner has as well, that the prayers of mature believers will be spent praising God rather than asking for things from Him. I agree with Pastor Schreiner that this certainly is not the case--in fact, I'd say it is deceiving.

While I believe that as we grow in the faith we should spend more time praising God (since we grow in the understanding of our own depravity and the greatness and fullness of God's effectual grace), it is not true that most of our prayer time is to be spent praising God--as this is found to be the case no where in Scripture.

First, when the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, the model prayer that He gave them was laden with requests of God. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread; forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one; for thine is the kingdom, power, and glory forever (requests in bold).

Second, in the Ephesians passage, Paul, continuing to speak of Spiritual warfare ("praying", as the ESV translates it, is a participle, continuing the thought from vv. 10-17 of how we are to "stand firm"), tell his audience to pray "with all prayer and petition." In other words, for the sake of being able to stand firm in the faith, we are to continually ("at all times in the Spirit") be on the alert spiritually, asking and pleading with God for such things as perseverence, guidance, boldness, etc for ourselves and others.

In Colossians, Paul speaks similarly when he says, "Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving; praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ" (Colossians 4:2-3). Paul is telling them, and therefore us, as well, to ask things of God--in other words, to be in complete dependence upon God.

And asking of God shows our complete dependence upon God; that is why we pray. When we are asking God for help in all things, we are acknowledging our depraved state and seeking His help, since it is by His grace that we are able to do anything good. To not ask God is to have reliance, or at least to claim reliance upon ourselves alone (even if this is done unintentionally). This is nothing short of blasphemy (though we are all guilty of such self-reliance)!

Third, Jesus commands us: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and he who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him?" (Matthew 7:7-11).

We are commanded to ask! (I could write a book exegeting passages on asking for things from God!) Jesus tells His disciples, "Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it" (John 14:13-14).

We ask so that we will get what we need. God has made us absolutely dependent upon Him so that we will ask, and so that we will receive from His hand. If we do not ask, all that we receive will still come from God, but we will not acknowledge it as readily, and we will not give God the glory of the benefactor, as He deserves. Why are we to ask of Jesus? Why will He give whatever we ask in His name? "So that the Father may be glorified in the Son." When the Son gives, the Father gets the glory--and the Son lives for the Father's glory.

Returning to Matthew 7, we see that God delights to give good gifts to those who ask. He wants to do it! If God is the giver, then we must acknowledge Him as the benefactor. If He is the benefactor, and we are the beneficiaries, it shows that God is the greatest, and thus we must acknowledge Him as God Almighty.

Now, I'm about to wax Piper on you all (that's right, it's still "you all" and not "y'all"), so stay with me. Which gives more glory, to hall buckets up a hill and to dump them in a fresh-water spring, or to rush up the hill, plunge your face in the refreshing, cool water, and drink until your heart is delighted and your thirst is quenched? Which one truly shows the value of the spring? Obviously the latter shows how much we treasure the self-sufficiency of the spring. If we merely dump our own effort it, then we are glorying in our own efforts. But if we delight in the thing itself (here the spring, which is an analogy for God), then it shows the worth of the thing itself. It is the giver, we are the receivers.

Now, our praises do not belittle God, rather they show our appreciation of His goodness, kindness, and mercy--they reveal our gratitude of His willingness and ability to give. Thus prayer must have both asking and praising. To ask of God reveals how much we depend upon Him, like a helpless child depends on his/her parents for food, the bottle, and the occassional change. So ask, and give glory to the Giver of every good gift!