Before you approach the heart of God in prayer…

Have you ever thought about how you approach God when you pray?

Some of you know my son Will loves to play baseball. This summer one of his coaches pulled him aside to give him some instruction on his batting. He said, when you come up to the plate, start with a really small strike zone.  Coach didn’t try to change his swing or move him closer to the plate… he just said, “Start with a really small strike zone.”

A few months ago my daughter Ella Grace turned 8 years old & she wanted a new bike for her birthday. Up to this point, she still had a small bike with training wheels. So she got excited about getting a “big girl bike.” Now every parent knows the hardest part of buying your kid a bike is not the purchase, it’s actually teaching your kid how to ride a bike.  So far I’ve been a colossal failure at this. But the other day, we were at the bike shop here in town & got to talking to the guys who work there about Ella Grace. These guys are bike experts. You know what they said? They said, “Drop the seat as low as possible & take off the pedals. Let her use her feet to scoot around & find her balance. Do that for a week & she’ll be riding in no time.”

Both of these stories have a common thread. And maybe you’ve already figured it out. But before we can really, fully, truly appreciate what this has to do with prayer we first have to look at one more story.  This story is a story that Jesus told about prayer.

In Luke 18:9, Luke sets up the story this way…

“Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else:”

Have you ever wondered… How do you get to that place? Where YOU have too much confidence in your own righteousness? Are you even righteous at all if you have scorn for anyone else? Sometimes we need to pause & take inventory of our own hearts. Who is it that we scorn? That we look down on? That we devalue for whatever reason? Righteousness stops being righteousness when it becomes self righteousness.

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So that’s the setup, that’s the audience to whom Jesus is talking. Now, here’s the story Jesus told…

“Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector.

 

Jesus wants to contrast the supposed righteous person against the presumed unrighteous person. And he wants to confront us, I believe, those of us who call ourselves Christian, he wants to confront us with this question: Do we assume we’re righteous?  Do we quickly make assumptions about the righteousness of other people?

11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! 12 I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’

Five times the Pharisee uses the word “I”. The focus of the prayer of this Pharisee is on himself. Now, just think about that for a moment. And before we’re too critical of this pharisee, let me ask you. When you pray, where is your focus? How many times do you use the pronoun “I” when you pray?

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The Pharisee’s confession to a perfect & holy God was that he too was perfect & holy — Not a sinner. Really? You’re going to stand before a perfect & holy God & lead off with how great you are?!

We would never say this, would we?

Now let’s contrast the prayer of the pharisee with the prayer of this tax collector. Notice where his focus begins & how much he prays about himself…

13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’

Eleven words.  His entire prayer was eleven words.

The only time we hear this tax collector use the pronoun “I” is when he confesses his status as a sinner.

In contrast to the Pharisee, this tax collector demonstrates extreme humility. Extreme humility is something God always applauds. When is the last time that you, like this man, felt true sorrow for your sin?

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The tax collector had used & abused his power over people. So had the Pharisee. They had more in common with each other than either would have liked to admit. But only one repented in humility.

The confession of sin is more painful but more valuable in the presence of God than a righteous rant.

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Do you look more like the pharisee or the tax collector so far in this story?

Jesus said…

14 I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

So what the baseball coach told my son wasn’t to hold the bat higher or swing sooner or anything else — he told him to change his approach.

And what the bike experts told me & Alisha wasn’t to try harder to teach Ella Grace to ride a bike, they didn’t tell us to buy a new bike or get this new attachment or watch this video on how to ride bikes better, they told to us change our approach.

What this Pharisee was missing in his prayer life may be the same thing you’re missing in your prayer life. What was the fundamental difference? What was the one thing that separated one man & his prayer offering from the other?

The Pharisee “had great confidence in his own righteousness and scorned everyone else…” The tax collector went home from praying to God justified because of his approach.

Because of his humility.

How can you change your approach?

So I want to ask you, How can you change your approach? How can you humble yourself in a radical way?  Because this is what has to change in your prayer life & my prayer life if we want to experience the presence & working of God in our lives. We have to change our approach.

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Because something changes when you assume radical humility before God.
You begin to see people, all people, as people loved by God.
You become more like Jesus as you assume positional humility at the bottom of the ladder.
You enter into a new world where Pharisees love tax collectors & tax collectors love pharisees, this is what life is like in the kingdom of Heaven.

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People love & people are loved. People humble themselves before others & before God.

And here is the fundamental truth I believe Jesus is trying to teach us today through the power of this story & I don’t want you to miss it. So listen…

Before you approach the heart of God in prayer, check your heart for others.

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The one thing that may need to change in your prayer life & in my prayer life may be our approach.

Because how we position ourselves in prayer matters. God isn’t in search for perfect people, just humble hearts. So lay down your ambition for perfection & assume a heart of humility.

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Humility is understanding how small you are & how great God is.  And the lower we get, the better we pray.

And by the way, this is what the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN looks like… it looks like a community of people who have radically humbled themselves in prayer before God. It looks like a community that has no scorn, no contempt, & never looks down on others no matter who they are or what they’ve done. Don’t you want to be a part of that community? I do.

I can encourage you to do that because Jesus took on the posture of humility, he became the tax collector, he became sin, he was crucified, he was humbled & then in his humility he was raised to life three days later & he was exalted.

When you humble yourself before God, even if it means part of you has to die, God will raise you up again.

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So before you approach the heart of God in prayer, check your heart for others. Find the way of humility. It’s the way of Jesus.