Would you stand with me as we read this brief passage? We read the Word of God. Luke 3 verse 21. Let us give our attention to God's inspired and infallible word. Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also being baptized and praying, The heaven was opened and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him and a voice came from heaven which said, Thou art my beloved Son.

In Thee I am well pleased." Amen. May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word. Let's unite our hearts in prayer. Righteous and holy Father, how we praise and bless thee. Thou art the one true and living God.

We praise and thank thee for the opportunity yet again to open up thy blessed word. We pray as our brother so wonderfully said before us earlier, It is Thee that must preach. Father, those that come, if they only hear me, they will go away paupers. Preach, Lord Jesus. Father, we thank Thee for this blessed word and all that was just set before us, and the blessed exhortations and helps that we have received.

Now, oh Father, I pray that thou wouldst grant us grace as we yet again look into thy blessed word. Oh, Holy Spirit, exalt Christ in our midst. We ask it in Jesus' holy name. Amen. Please be seated.

The Lord Jesus Christ was a man of prayer. When we survey the Gospels, We discover that Jesus was constantly in communion with his heavenly Father. From the beginning of his ministry until his agonizing death upon Calvary's cross, Christ earnestly, frequently, and perseveringly prayed. His great heart was always open to heaven. And the loving intimate communion between Christ and his Father is evident in his words and in his deeds.

He could say with unfailing certainty, Father I thank thee that thou hast heard me." Christ Jesus lived a life of prayer. Now in the sacred text that we have just read, we find this. Jesus also being baptized and praying and praying the heaven was opened. What a stunning scene this is. The eternal Son of God anointed with the Spirit of God without measure.

Truly, God's anointed one, God's Christ, was publicly identified with sinners in his baptism. His public ministry began in prayer and the heavens tore open with his Father's approval descending upon him. Throughout his ministry, we often read things like this. He withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed. Luke 5 16.

Before he chose his 12 disciples, he went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God. Luke 6 12, after an intense time of healing the sick and casting out devils. He prepared himself for preaching this way. In the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place and there prayed. Mark 1 35, later while he fed the five thousand he took up or he looked up to heaven and blessed and break the loaves and gave them to his disciples and set before them." Mark 6 41.

Then after feeding them, He exhausted Himself, healing and caring for others. Yet, following this, when He had sent them away, He departed into a mountain to pray. Mark 6 46, after He pronounced withering judgments upon unrepentant cities, Jesus prayed, I thank thee, O Father Lord, of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Matthew 11, 25, when he instituted what we call the Lord's Supper, Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat, this is my body. Matthew 26, 26.

Then, speaking in the upper room to his dear disciples and preparing himself for his journey to Calvary's cross. We read, hours come. Glorify thy son that thy son also may glorify thee as thou hast given him power over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee." That they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. John 17 3, Before he entered Gethsemane, he said soberly to Peter, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.

But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." Luke 22, 36. And as the cross of Calvary loomed, upon which he would die an excruciating death in pain and agony, Jesus went with his disciples into a place called Gethsemane and sayeth unto his disciples, sit ye here while I go and pray yonder. Matthew 26, 36. Have there ever under heaven been such extraordinary wrestlings of a human soul as set before us here. O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." Matthew 26, 39. And again, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done." 2642. And he prayed these astonishing words a third time. Now, In this prayer, brethren, lay our eternity. He submitted to His Father's will and went to the cross, securing the pardon of sin and everlasting life for His eternally beloved people.

And yet in His unspeakable suffering, He uttered the most remarkable words from a dying man towards his enemies ever spoken. Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Luke 23, 34, And as He hung between heaven and earth upon Calvary's cross, suffering all the wrath of his father's fury for all the sins of all of his people for all of eternity. With Psalm 22 burning in his heart, he cried, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. That is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Matthew 27, 46, After accomplishing the full and free salvation of all his people, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." And having said this, He gave up the ghost. Luke 23 and 46. Christ's voice was familiar and welcome before the throne of His loving Heavenly Father at all times. He entered His ministry praying. His last breath was given to prayer.

All this makes abundantly clear, knowing that we could go to many more passages, that Jesus Christ lived, breathed a life of prayer. If ever a man's life was a commentary on the apostles' exhortation, Pray without ceasing. It was the man Christ Jesus. From this baptism in which his Father expressed his love and his blessings upon his holy Son, to his death as a criminal upon the cross, his heart was engaged with his Heavenly Father. This does not mean that every waking moment of his short life spent on this earth was in the posture of prayer and in the act of prayer.

But we simply find him engaged in prayer in every activity of his life, every sort of human activity in his ministry, from giving thanks for food to praying for his enemies, even as his life's blood flowed from his head, from his hands, and from his feet. He lived in prayer and died in prayer. It should not surprise us then that we read the following. And it came to pass that as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth. Give us this day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins. For we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. The Jews were brought up praying.

The devout household said the Shema in the morning and in the evening. They had various prayers that were expected of them at all times. Jews knew something about prayer. What was it that they heard that made them say, teach us to pray? If you are indeed alive in the Spirit of God and you are often before God in prayer, in time, And I do not mean this in any judgmental sense, and I'm not talking about perfection of delivery.

You can begin to hear people that are strangers to prayer. They're not used to prayer. We must learn to pray. It is true we learn certain aspects of prayer from others. There have been a couple of men in my life.

To pray with them was one of the privileges of my human existence. To pray with Pastor L.R. Shelton Jr. I only had six months with him before the Lord took him, But I looked forward to every opportunity of going back into his trailer, sitting down with him and saying, let's pray. And to hear him pray was to hear the voice of someone who was familiar with being God's presence.

It wasn't that they were flowery prayers. It wasn't that they sounded like poetry, like some of the beautiful prayers we read in the Valley of Vision. But there was a reality and an earnestness and a familiarity with God that was neither chummy on one side or groveling on the other. It was a voice that was used to communing with God. I thank God for every man with whom I've had that great privilege.

This is not to say I despise the prayers of others. I wrestle constantly in my own prayer life. My brain gets stuck. The words don't want to seem to come. I understand the wrestling of having the anchor of the flesh as your soul tries to take flight.

But familiarity with God, we see it in every aspect of Christ's life. He's the model. He is the one who lived in the attitude of prayer. Jesus Christ lived a life of prayer. He is the great teacher and he is the model of prayer.

And prayer is a reality in the life of all those who are in union with him. We should not be surprised then that The Lord Jesus expected his people to pray. When he taught the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus did not say, if thou prayest, rather he said, when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are." Now I'm sure every individual here has had the fear of praying before others. Quite sure that there are those here who too easily succumb to praying for the ears of those that are listening rather than for our God in heaven. It's a temptation.

There are those who want to pray and even be known as beautiful prayers. The Pharisees could do that. We're not talking about the mechanical perfection, the beauty of articulation, though those things are fine, and a moving and touching prayer, as I mentioned in the Valley of Vision, they're fuel for our praying. They're food for the soul. They prime the pup often.

But this is not what God requires. He wants us to come and to pray, to commune with Him. Jesus did not urge His disciples to pray. He assumed that they did and that they would. So let us ask the question, what is prayer?

J.C. Ryle wrote, prayer is the most important subject in practical religion. I want to repeat that. Prayer is the most important subject in practical religion. All other subjects are second to it.

Reading the Bible, keeping the Sabbath, hearing sermons, attending public worship, going to the Lord's table, all these are very weighty matters, But none of them are so important as private prayer. Does not Christ's life stand as a testimony to Ryle's statement? We just took a small portion of the passages that speak of Christ and his praying. He bathed every aspect of his life in prayer. He communed with his Blessed Father And then he went into the things to which his father called him." I wonder if we really believe what Ryle says here.

That it is the most important subject in practical religion. It's very easy for us, those of us that love books, that's a good thing. And those of us that love to read men who have saturated their minds and hearts with the Scriptures and have lived, who have walked with Christ, who have hammered out the truths of the Word and the things that they say and do and in the providences that the Lord brings their way. We love to read them take words and put them together well. They're able to articulate for us something that our heart responds to.

It vibrates like an instrument being tuned. And we appreciate that good articulation. But again, God does not demand that. God does not require that. God wants us to pray.

Is it the most important thing? Do we really look at all the endeavors of our lives and seek our Heavenly Father's face before we lay our hands to them? This is what we appear to see in Christ. Again, I must wonder, do we really just like to read Ryle or do we believe this and do our lives respond to this? Moreover, if we do actually believe it, I wonder if we practice what we believe.

Could it be that we do not actually spend much time in thinking about what prayer actually is? It's quite obvious that the disciple who asked Christ to teach him to pray heard something about Christ's prayers that elevated above what he understood prayer to be. I wasn't there. I didn't hear it. It isn't in the text.

But one can only wonder if it was not simply the beauty of His familiarity with His Heavenly Father. I'm fascinated with attempts to define prayer as I am with those who attempt to define preaching. And I read them and I wonder about them. Dr. Lloyd-Jones, who was so wonderfully used in my own life, in my own conversion, He said that he wondered if he ever really preached.

If you've read enough of his sermons, you would ask, what are you thinking when you say something like that? But I believe it's very much the same way with prayer. I'm like that not only with sermons, I'm like that with prayer. Have I really prayed? Have I really engaged with my God?

And I don't want to run anybody necessarily down a track of searching for an experience as such. What I'm saying is that that thing about prayer in which in my heart and soul I believe I'm communing with my God. And we know He hears us and we know it is not a matter of our professionalism in prayer. But when you read Bonner, when you read McCain, read what they write in their journals and they would say, he didn't break through today. Or prayed, dead, dry, dull.

Later on, after seeking Christ earnestly, broke through. These kinds of things filled their writings. They were seeking to know their God, to know in their hearts a satisfaction that They indeed were communing with their God, with their Savior. There is something about it. It is hard to define.

I will do what I often do. I will read several other men's definitions Just to give you some feel for how men of prayer struggle with this notion and try to articulate it. What is this thing? John Calvin defined prayer as a communion of men with God by which having entered the heavenly sanctuary, they appealed to him in person concerning his promises, in order to experience that what they believed was not in vain. The Word is involved in this.

The Spirit of God is involved in this. It is not simply the rote running through in a hurry, now I lay me down to sleep. God is great, God is good, now I thank Him for this. And I don't want to give the impression that those two prayers couldn't be offered up sincerely. But it is not simply a religious duty to scatter, to run through so that we can say, I have, or not have to deal with that elder who's coming up smiling, and I know he's going to ask me, brother, how are you?

How are things going in your home? How are things in your life? How's your prayer life? Pastors, do you ask the men of your congregations these things? How is prayer?

Are you encouraged in prayer? Not so that we can check them off the list, so that we can encourage and answer the questions about dealing with the weak. Brother, thankfully I've had people ask me in the last year or two, they've begun to see my continued pressing regarding this matter. Prayer, prayer, prayer! To do all the other things we do.

To attend the preaching of the Word. To read good books. To be home schoolers. To do all of these kinds of things. As our brother said earlier, really they can become nothing but legalistic externals.

The very fire that makes these things burn with the reality in our lives is prayer. Being able somehow to enter into the heavenly place, to enter into the Holy of Holies, to know that we're in the presence of God by faith and we are communing as if we were the only one in His presence, He is truly God. To hear all the prayers of all of His people, not be distracted, not have enough energy to answer. He is God. He is God.

And we come with His promises in our hands. Calvin on prayer is wonderful. I encourage you to read him on this. But do we not see this illustrated in Christ's life of prayer? Did he not express his love for and his utter dependence upon his loving Heavenly Father?

Did he not give thanks for food on one hand and cry out an abandonment as his father judged him on the cross as an unclean thing. John Knox defined prayer as an earnest and familiar talking with God, to whom we declare our miseries, whose support and help we implore and desire in our adversities, and who we laud and praise for our benefits received. John Bunyan, a little more verbose, but beautiful. And none of us will remember this definition. It's worth memorizing, but it's true.

Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God through Christ in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit. For such things as God has promised, or according to His Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God." There is so much scripture packed into this definition. And yet as we read each one of these men, we see them grasping to articulate that thing, that experience. B. M.

Palmer, who wrote a theology of prayer, said, If we combine the definitions of the larger and shorter catechisms, we may discover a complete definition of prayer. Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to His will in the name of Christ, by the help of His Spirit, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies. Each one of these men brings a different aspect into this. You can see that at certain points they're bringing in the things that they know, they understand, that they've experienced in prayer, that they teach others about prayer. And yet we see those slight facets changing as we turn that jewel.

We can memorize these definitions, But do we pray? Do we go into God's presence and talk to Him based on what His Word says in the power of His Spirit? All these men were pastors, and there are numerous books with great definitions, but all of these men were pastors who knew the profound importance of prayer, the experience of wrestling in prayer, the emptiness of mechanical prayer, the guilt of heartless prayer, and the blessing of spirit-wrought prayer. They had learned that true prayer is the language of the heart, born of God's Spirit. When the resurrected Christ spoke to Paul or spoke of Paul to Ananias, he said, Behold, he prayed.

Ananias was afraid of Paul. We know about this guy. He persecutes the church. Christ doesn't go into a long apologetic. He says, look, he prays.

Paul was a Pharisee. He knew all kinds of prayers. For the first time in his existence, He was praying, connected to God by the Christ with whom He was now in union. Prayer is the grace transformed heart, breathing its praise, its desires and burdens up to God. Prayer is the evidence that eternal life has come down to a once darkened soul and now rises back to heaven in praise, love, thanksgiving.

Prayer is the unmistakable sign of the life of God in the soul of man. The lips that once blasphemed Him now praise Him. The lips that once spewed hatred toward God now pour forth love. The lips that once declared their depraved independence now cry out in childlike dependence. We cannot live without air.

We cannot live without prayer. Jesus assumed that his disciples prayed because prayerlessness is lifelessness and he came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. Prayerlessness is darkness and he came to draw us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Prayerlessness is Christlessness. In J.C.

Ryle's wonderful call to prayer. He asks over and again after making his points about prayer and connecting it to doctrine and life, he says, do you pray, do you pray, Do you pray? And that brings us to pastors in prayer. Robert Murray MacTain declared, what a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more." I remember the first time I read that, being struck to the heart with a sense of its weighty reality. The longer I live, the longer I serve Christ, the longer I serve His people, the more I grasp the reality of those profound words.

Those of us who preach must bathe our sermons in prayer. We're still reading Jonathan Edwards and one of the reasons was because He bathed His sermons in prayer. Same with the Puritans and of the greatest men, not simply pulpitiers. Pulpitiers rise up in every generation. But men whose voices, because it is Christ preaching through them, are still speaking to us.

Our sermons must be empowered by prayer. McCain also said, study universal holiness of life. Study it. Your whole usefulness depends on this, For your sermons last but an hour or two. Your life preaches all the week.

Give yourself to prayer and get your text, your thoughts, your words from God. Our sermons must be kindled by the very power of heaven. Or we may impress people with our studies, but it will do them no eternal good. Men can get excited over their own exegesis. Men can get fired up because they've learned how to articulate in a way that people don't seem to see past.

They just have the gift of gaff. And they can be excited and people sitting and listening to them can think yes indeed this guy's fired up. If your life goes out and there's been no change, never any change, we must begin to ask what is it that he's fired up about? Where is that coming from? It just could be that he's a hyperfellow, a man of great emotions, a man who can turn on the tears.

Our preaching will be nothing but empty, useless, damaging words unless we pray down the fire of God's Spirit into our souls and plead for His holy unction upon our preaching. And by the way, those of us here who are not pastors but sit under the faithful preaching of the Word need to bathe our pastors in prayer, crying out regularly for God's mighty power to fill them and animate their sermons with soul-transforming power. Some of you likely have heard this before, but I can say to you with all of my heart, the longer that I live, While it is important, I'm less concerned about the information. I am deeply concerned about transformation. I don't want to separate those things.

Of course, we must be preaching the Word of God. But far too often, preachers can fall into the temptation of just quoting their favorite hobby horse, of quoting their favorite writers. They've enjoyed it. It's been like a cup of fine wine to them or grape juice for some. But I have to ask you with all my heart, Do we really understand this?

Are we just getting more information and walking out of the church door on the Lord's day or and that the times that we meet unchanged? We need to ask what's happening if That's the case. Maybe the pastor, it may be us, it may be all of us. But I can assure you things change. I even see it at certain moments in my own congregation where as I have been smitten before the Lord regarding this matter and struggle and wrestle before him as I never have.

I'm not preaching any better, but the Lord's people are hearing better. He in bounds was an Arminian. This Mars, his works on prayer significantly, at least to me, it's very hard for me to read him. However, in his book Preacher and Prayer, he had some remarkable insights. You can get past some of his man-centered-isms.

I never thought I would quote an Armenian in my messages. But I want you to hear some of the things that he put his finger on. Just a few. I could have spent a great deal of time. But consider just a few of his thoughts.

He said, what the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men of prayer, Men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost flows not through methods but through men. He does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans but men. Men of prayer, again he said, hearty, heroic, compassionate, fearless martyrs must be the men who take hold and shape a generation for God.

If they be timid time servers, place seekers, if they be men-pleasers or men-fearers, if their faith has a weak hold on God or his word, they cannot take hold of the church nor of the world for God. When speaking of preachers with no power, he said, the death-dealing element, oh, these words, The death-dealing element lies back of the words, back of the sermon, back of the occasion, back of the manner, back of the action. The great hindrance is in the preacher himself. He is not in himself the mighty life-creating forces, has not in himself. There may be no discount on his orthodoxy, honesty, cleanness, or earnestness, But His inner life is not a great highway for the transmission of God's message, God's power.

We can throw notes together and get by. But brethren, when we get on our faces before God seeking him for food for his sheep, things begin to change. Let's talk about pastors and wives for a moment. I cannot urge pastors and wives enough. By the way, I have to say one more thing about but balance.

He used this remarkable language to me. He said somewhere in the pastor, maybe unbeknownst to him, there's a spiritual nonconductor that has arrested the flow of the Spirit. That usually means some sin before our God that we must repent of. I know that my greatest times in prayer is when the Lord has put his finger upon some sin in my life and I wrestle and I struggle before him and I cry out and I find my rest and peace in the glorious gospel and the oil and the wine of Christ and His Spirit. But I say to you, then praying is simple.

It's simple. Now I cannot urge pastors and wives enough to pray together, not only individually, but together, earnestly, persevering daily. To whom should Peter's words be a more burning reality? Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered. Pray, pastors, pray with your wife and for your wife in her presence.

Christ prayed for His bride in their presence, in her presence. Do you pray down God's blessing upon her in her presence? Some of the greatest Encouragements in my life have been to hear from my beloved wife's own lips prayers for me, Prayers that I would stay faithful to Christ. She's never prayed, asking the Lord for me to be faithful to her. But in her beautiful, almost childlike prayers, she cries out to God that I would stay faithful to Christ and His Word.

He prays for my health for me. Brothers and sisters, daily there ought to be a beautiful communion between the two of you with our Heavenly God, our Father Christ in the power of the Spirit. Christ prayed for His bride privately, publicly, and by God's Holy Spirit we are in union with Him. Shall we not do the same for our beloved brides? Shouldn't there be a fragrance in our homes of a wife well prayed for?

Let us then cultivate authentic prayer as Christ instructs. How do we do this? Cannot do this briefly, and I am facing briefly at this moment. First of all, we must know what real prayer is. We can take these good definitions.

We can get good ideas from them. But we learn it most acutely on our knees with God's word, crying out to our God, pleading with the one who loved us before the foundation of the world. Teach us to pray. Teach me to pray. Oh, in my early days after the Lord saved me, I knew that in my life as a religious man before he converted me.

I could speak osmosis prayers with the best of them. I could pick up all the nice nomenclature here and there out of various prayers and knit them together and say them. But When the Lord opened my heart, I prayed, but I cried to Him, teach me, teach me, I want to know this. He led me to the Psalms and I would pray through the Psalms daily. There are wonderful helps out there.

There are things like the valley of vision. Get all the helps you can but nothing, nothing will take the place of getting on your face, getting on your knees, getting on your back, lifting up your arms, getting in the posture that you need and crying out to the Most High and pleading with Him that you might know how to pray. Secondly, that we must have the right motivation. If we only want to be seen and heard of men, we are hypocrites and outside the kingdom of heaven. To motivate our hearts, let us consider that God fixed His love on us before He created the universe.

In that blessed eternity, He agreed with His eternal Son to save us from the penalty, the power, the pleasure, the presence of sin. He would do this by sending his eternally beloved son into this world to become a man, to be our surety, to be our substitute, to be our prophet, to be our priest, to be our king. He gave his son into the hands of his enemies, who tortured and mocked him mercilessly. They hung him upon Calvary's cruel cross, on which he died in unspeakable agony and anguish. And as his life's blood flowed to the ground, Jesus was forevermore opening the entrance to the Father's throne of grace, an entrance for our prayers.

Don't Run to prayer because now you feel guilty. Run to prayer because Christ is worthy, because Christ is glorious. He rose again the third day. He ascended up to glory. He is seated as his Father's right hand, interceding for us now.

And not only so, but he takes every one of our weak, feeble, limited and deformed prayers and makes them beautiful and acceptable in heaven. What greater motivation do we need? What is more calculated to set the heart aflame for prayer than Christ's person and work? What is more calculated to melt the heart in repentance than Christ, person, and his work for me. What is more calculated to stir the heart to hate and mortify sin than the person and work of Christ?

Properly motivated, then, three, we must set a time, a place, and regularly seek our Lord's face. I must close. But let me say this. How will we be the pastors of Christ's blood-bought sheep that He has appointed us to be? By God's grace, we must live a life of prayer.

Let us commune with the Good Shepherd in prayer and learn from Him how to feed, mature, and protect His flock. Let us be ever before the throne of grace on their behalf. Christ's blood has opened the way. His word informs our minds. His spirit empowers our souls and His intersection beautifies our prayers and makes them acceptable to our loving Heavenly Father.

God hears and answers us in Christ. So let us then pour out our hearts in prayer to our God. Let us live in Christ a life of prayer. Amen. Holy Father, teach us to pray.

Raise up a generation of men who pray, will Pray, grow in prayer. May we have men that shake the kingdom of darkness with their prayer, tongues and lips that bless their wives and their children with holy prayer. We ask it all in the name of Christ Jesus Amen.