June 1, 2022
Author: Pastor Gordon Cook
June 01, 2022
Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one
of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught
his disciples.” And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father,
hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily
bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is
indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.”
Luke 11:1-4
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and
all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet
life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good and it is pleasing
in the sight of our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to
come to the knowledge of the truth.
1 Timothy 2:1-4
If I asked you for God’s blueprint on marriage, where would you go?
There are four places you could go in terms of the original design for
marriage: Genesis 2, Matthew 19, Mark 10 and Ephesians 5. What if I
asked you for the blueprint for prayer, where would you go? The best
place would be to go to Jesus and those two portions in Matthew 6 and
Luke 11 where our Lord teaches the Lord’s Prayer. There is a little bit
of a difference between those two prayers, but it is the Lord’s Prayer
and it is our Lord teaching us how to pray. We could also go to the
apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 2 where he says, “I urge that supplications,
prayers, intercessions, thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings
and all who are in high positions.” So you have both blueprints which
are large sized, or broad lensed. Both prayers, or blueprints, have
global dimensions or universal applications. Both prayers include the
whole world, all people.
We have to be honest, most of the
prayers that we pray tend to be narrowly focused. It doesn’t mean they
are bad prayers but those are generally how we pray, we focus upon
ourselves, our families, our church. Again, those are good prayers, not
necessarily bad prayers, but I do think we need to extend and regularly
broaden our prayers. God wants us to pray big prayers, global prayers,
prayers for the world. The petition, “Thy kingdom come,” obviously could
go across the world. God’s kingdom overthrowing all the human kingdoms
of the earth and certainly the devil’s kingdom or the powers of the evil
one.
Also the petition in Matthew 6 includes, “deliver us from
evil.” That doesn’t just include our own evil, the evil within our own
hearts, but the evil in the world. Deliver us from evil people, evil
influences, evil philosophies. The world lies in the grip of the evil
one.
The second blueprint of the apostle Paul, you could argue,
is a big prayer, a global prayer. Notice the specifics, we are to pray
for kings, rulers, and those in authority. And he adds, “for all
people.” We are to pray for Democrats, Republicans, poor people, rich
people, Chinese people, Russian people, people in Ukraine, for all
nations. We are to pray for our friends, for our enemies, for people who
sit in prison cells and who sit on death row. There is no category of
people that we should not pray for. We are to pray for politicians,
Hollywood celebrities, kings and those in high places of government, the
Pontius Pilates, King Herods, and the Neros of this world.
Our great encouragement, Brethren, when it comes to praying big prayers, is that God rules over men.
We go to a sovereign God who has all of the hearts of every single
person, even the hearts of kings in his hands. No one can stay his hand.
That is one of the great encouragements when we come to the throne of
grace. Whether they believe in him or not, whether they believe God even
exists, God reigns and no one can stay his hand.
In my first
year of Bible College up in Toronto, Canada I went to a conference in
Montreal on prayer and I bought my first book on prayer by E.M. Bounds,
and he says, “Prayer is far reaching in influence, worldwide in its
effects, it effects all men everywhere.” Wickedness is universal but the
grace of God can go everywhere, it can touch any heart, any nation, any
king, any queen in any second of time.
Another great
encouragement when it comes to praying big prayers, “God is able to do
exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think.” So you never
have to worry that God won’t go far above even the prayers that we bring
to him.
So when we pray let’s think not just of the narrow
prayers, (we are to pray for ourselves, our daily food) but think of the
kingdom prayers, global prayers.
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