June 30th, 2024
As a congregation, we’ve just heard five sermons on Romans 8. In the midst of the groaning and suffering of this world, we have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba! Father!” We pray to our Father, knowing that he is working all things for our good, conforming us to the image of his Son, and knowing that the Spirit and the Son are interceding for us. Nothing can separate us from his love.
This Sunday, we begin a new summer series in the book of Nehemiah. Prayer is one of the great themes of this book. God’s Word through Romans and Nehemiah calls us to pray, to cry out, “Abba! Father!” This summer we will gather for prayer on Wednesday evenings. The petitions of the Lord’s Prayer will guide our time of prayer together.
When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he taught them to pray the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:1-4; Matt 6:9-13). Throughout the history of the Church, Christians have received the Lord’s Prayer as the basic pattern and content of prayer.
In the third century, Cyprian of Carthage exhorted his church: “Let us therefore, beloved brothers, pray as God our Teacher has taught us. It is a loving and friendly prayer to beseech God with His own Word, to come up to his ears in the prayer of Christ. Let the Father acknowledge the words of His Son when we make our prayer, and let him also who dwells within in our breast himself dwell in our voice.”
In the sixteen century, Martin Luther wrote in his Larger Catechism that in the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer “are comprehended all the needs that continually beset us, each one so great that it should impel us to keep praying for it all our lives.” John Calvin wrote in his Institutes that God who knows our weakness, has graciously given us “a form in which is set before us as in a picture everything which it is lawful to wish, everything which is conducive to our interest, everything which it is necessary to demand. From his goodness in this respect we derive the great comfort of knowing, that as we ask almost in his words, we ask nothing that is absurd, or foreign, or unseasonable; nothing, in short, that is not agreeable to him.” (Inst. III.20.34)
Finally, in the Westminster Shorter Catechism we read, “the whole Word of God is of use to direct us in prayer; but the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which Christ taught his disciples” (Q.99).
We hope to see you on Wednesday evenings this summer: “let us continue steadfastly in prayer” (Col 4:2).