Helpless Dependence

I am going to ask you to turn to Acts 17 to begin our time and prime us as we think about going to prayer. Acts 17 is where the Apostle Paul is in that place called Mars Hill. He's been invited there, and engages in what you could call an apologetic defense of the faith. These are intellectuals of his day, the philosophers, the Stoic and the Epicurean philosophers.  But notice, he doesn't begin preaching Christ. He begins by preaching that God is their creator. Look at Acts 17:24, “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man.” And then if you look at verse 26, again he goes back to the story of creation, “And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth.” And he also tells them that this God doesn't need anything or anyone. Look at verse 25, “Nor is He served by human hands as though He needed anything since He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” 

God is independent, we are dependent, and he reminds them of that reality. Look at verse 28, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” And doesn't Jesus even remind us of our dependency, when you think of the Lord's Prayer. He gives us those three petitions that we are to bring to God, “Give us our daily bread, forgive us our debts, and lead us not in temptation.” So we are dependent creatures. We need food, we certainly need forgiveness because we sin and we need protection from the evil one. We are dependent creatures, God is independent. We are dependent the moment we are born and the moment we die, we're always dependent creatures. I remember someone saying this,

Oftentimes we do. Helpless dependents.

But a great and wonderful way for us to show our dependence is by prayer. Prayer is telling God, we need Him, we can't live without Him. And what makes prayer so special is not simply that we're talking to God, but we are fellowshipping, we are entering into a relationship, a communion with God. By prayer we enter into God's special presence. We draw near to Him. Remember what the writer of Hebrews tells us, “He draws near to us.” I don't know how many of you folk have ever read anything by Dr. John Owen. He was considered to be the greatest of the Puritan theologians, and he has a 16-volume set. In Volume 2 is Communion with God. That's the title, Communion with God, and here is what he says, 

So when we pray those Trinitarian prayers, what are we saying? We are saying we have a unique and special relationship with God. We are going to a three-person God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But what's so sad is that the world we live in doesn't know this God, doesn't love this God, but we do. What a privilege to be able to pray. But here's the great danger, I think, is for all of us as Christians, we want to be so careful that we don't take it for granted. Perhaps there's no greater danger as we live the Christian life then taking prayer for granted.

So we're about to call on God, the Great I AM, the Almighty, the three-person God. We come to our Heavenly Father; we come in the name of His Son; we come with the help or the comfort of the Holy Spirit. And think about this, too. God the Father, just like you as fathers and you as mothers, God the Father loves to hear His children pray. He loves to hear His children pray. What a privilege. He loves to see us come to Him by way of His Son. He loves for us to rely upon the help and comfort of the Holy Spirit. We often think of prayer as a duty. It is a duty, we're commanded to pray, but it's also a gracious gift, and a privilege.