Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - How To Pray

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

What’s ironic is the Lord’s Prayer has probably the most familiar words in the English language, and yet it is the secret to what you seek. We’re so tired of technology, of quantifying everything, of being a number. At the core of our being, we need and we desperately want real soul experience. And how to have it is right in front of us.  Jesus Christ taught it to us in the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus says, “This is how to pray. This is the key.” I must say that one of the reasons why we don’t know how to use it is because this prayer is so familiar. But it tells you everything you need to know about communication with God. Looking at just one verse, we see how Jesus shows us 1) the difficulty of prayer, 2) the basis of prayer, and 3) the essence of prayer. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 6, 1990. Series: The Lord’s Prayer 1990. Scripture: Matthew 6:9-15. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. In a world that leaves us exhausted, distracted, and searching for meaning, Jesus gives us the Lord's Prayer as a guide to true connection with God. Join us today as Tim Keller shows us why the Lord's Prayer isn't just a ritual to recite, but a pathway to deeper communion with God. scripture reading is found in the gospel of Matthew. We're in the Sermon on the Mount, and we come into chapter six, and we're going to read about what Jesus teaches regarding prayer. And I would like to read just verses 9 through 15. Very familiar, very familiar. This is where Jesus explains and gives to us the model of the Lord's Prayer. This then is how you should pray. Our Father, in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, their sins, your father will not forgive your sin. This is God's Word. We've been going through the sermon on the Mount, and today we come to the subject of prayer. First question, why talk about prayer? Isn't that a subject that might be okay for very religious people?

But for the average person, for most people, isn't that a fairly impractical and unimportant issue? And the answer, of course, is no, not at all. Let me tell you how relevant and practical an issue it really is. We live in a society, and we live in a culture that's starved for experience. Absolutely starve. It's a starved for a sense of authority and for any kind of deep experience of the soul. Because we live in a secular technological society that reduces everything to commodity. It reduces everything to facts and figures and forms and procedures.

it reduces your feelings to either chemical things. It's a matter of chemicals or environmental learning theories. Everything is reduced so it can be explained, so it can be reproduced, so it can be controlled. Now, in this environment, we're basically being told two things. There's no such thing as God, and there's no such thing as a soul. and because of that, well, what's happened? What's the results? People have told us for the last 20 or 30 years that as society gets more technological and a society gets more urbanized, what will happen is very simple. People will lose their interest in religion. It will lose their use for it. And instead, what's happened in the last 10, 20, or 30 years has confounded the experts. It's especially confounded the sociologists. It's a lot of fun, by the way, to read sociologists. textbooks, sociology of religion 20 years ago. It's fun. It makes you feel wonderful to see what their predictions are. What's happened is not anything that they could have imagined, and instead,

what we have today is this incredible, desperate rush into anything that gives us mystical experience. Mystical experience. For example, you've got a whole lot of people that are developing new religions. There's new religions all the time. Americans have always been inventive, but I guess we didn't think this would be happening. New religions springing up all over the place. But there's also a rush back into the old eastern religions, and there's a lot of movement into what's called the New Age movement. The New Age movement is basically Eastern religion, contextualized, and marketed for the West. And there's a lot of interest in the occult. But, now here's where I don't want to step on too many toes. There's a lot of us.

We're a little bit too scientific and a little bit too proud to say we've gotten into religion. But a lot of us over the years have tried to satisfy our need for mystical experience through a lot of other things. For example, in many cases we've gotten deeply into meditation and all kinds of relaxation and toning techniques and eating a certain diet and certain workout regimens, you know. We don't think of that as religion, yet we're trying to get into that high. The runner's high. We're after the runner's high. Ever had the runners high?

On the other hand, some of us are very deeply into counseling and into therapy and into psychology and into deep encounter with our true selves. And some of us are into sexuality and all sorts of relationships. Now, listen, got to be careful here, what I'm going to say. First I'll say it, then I'll qualify it. All of this, they're rushing into this discipline of the body and of the mind, the meditation, the workout regimens,

or the therapy and the counseling, or the New Age movement, all of these things are substitutes for prayer, for the vacuum that's left in our lives because we do not pray or we don't know how to pray. Let me back off real quickly and say, it doesn't mean that if you pray, you don't need to keep fit. I'm not saying, if you pray, you never need to see a counselor. I'm not saying anything like that.

But I am saying that because we've been told by our culture, there isn't a God and there isn't a soul. So prayer and intimacy with the infinite and mystical experience through the mediation of Jesus Christ, coming into the presence of the Father and meeting him face to face and communing with him. Because that's a lot of hogwash. We don't need religion anymore. We were told that. And in many ways, we say, that's right. I don't need religion.

And yet through the back door, we desperately need and are searching out for mystical experience. And no amount of sex and no amount of therapy and no amount of meditation can substitute for prayer, which is intimacy with the infinite. It's intimacy with the authoritative God. Now, Jesus Christ tells us, well, here's a, here let me say something. The Lord's Prayer, somebody has suggested, is probably the most familiar words in the English language. probably more people have said the Lord's Prayer more often, that there's no other formula, there's no other set of words that have been spoken out loud by more people in the history of the world.

What's ironic is, this is the secret to what you seek. At the core of our being, we need, we desperately want, that's what I'm trying to say in these introductory remarks, we need and we desperately want real soul experience. we're so tired of technology. We're so tired of quantifying everything. We're so tired of being a number. We want soul experience.

And it's right in front of us. How to have it. Jesus Christ taught it to us in the Lord's prayer. Jesus says, this is how to pray. This is the key. Look at it. And I must say that one of the reasons why we don't know how to use it is because it's so familiar, right? Have you ever visited somebody who has an apartment by an elevated train?

train. And you're sitting there talking with them. You know, you come to visit them for the first time. You're sitting there talking to them. And the train comes by and knocks you off the chair. You look around and you think something's coming right through the window. You fall down and you say, what was that? And they say what? What was what? That train. Oh, the train. You know, I've gotten so used to it. I don't even notice it anymore. You're kidding, right? Jesus Christ says, listen, do you know why there's emptiness in your life? You don't know how to pray. Wouldn't you like to be able to come face to face with the Father and King of the Universe every day

to pour out your heart to him and to sense him pouring out of his heart to you? Wouldn't you like to connect like that? Wouldn't that fulfill you? You say, yes. Well, there it is. There it is. The Lord's Prayer. And you say, there's what?

It's so familiar. It's a model. It's a pump primer. It's a scaffold on which we're supposed to build our prayer life. And so what I want to do now for the next 15 minutes, and then what I want to do next week is to take a look at the Lord's Prayer and show you all of the lessons that Jesus Christ is teaching us in this. This tells you everything you need to know about communication with God. Everything. It's all here. You got that? Let's look at it.

All I'm going to do today is look at this one verse. this then is how you should pray our father who art in heaven that's all we're going to look at because in there we have three things first of all jesus says when you pray and that shows us the difficulty of prayer and then he says our father and that shows us the basis of prayer and then he shows us who are it in heaven and that shows us the essence of prayer which is praise the difficulty of prayer the basis of prayer and the essence of prayer those Those are the first three lessons we're taught here as we look at the Lord's Prayer and let's just look at them. Okay?

And just keep this in mind. You're like those people who live in that apartment by the elevated train and you don't hear it anymore. Anybody else says, it must be crazy. How could you not hear that? How could you not notice that? And we have to look at the Lord's Prayer and say, there's all kinds of riches in here that I go by every single week when I say it out loud or every single time I hear. I go right by it. I don't even realize it.

There's unfathomable treasure here. I've just got to reach down and get it. Number one, Jesus is teaching us the difficulty of prayer. When he says, this end is how you should pray. Jesus believed it was necessary to teach us. And the first lesson to being a good prayer, to learning the secrets of prayer, is to know that it's hard,

to know that it takes learning. One of the worst things you can possibly do is to walk into the Christian life thinking prayer is easy. Thinking prayer is natural. well it's natural in the sense that we're built for it but it is not easy can you imagine a helicopter pilot a rookie helicopter pilot on his first flight saying to himself this will be easy no sweat he should have some adrenaline pumping he should know about the complexity and the

difficulty of of taking off and landing in a helicopter in a safe way he needs to have a healthy fear and trembling because if he goes in there with swagger and says, this is a snap, he'll probably be killed. And so will we, if you walk into prayer that way. Prayer takes learning. That's the first thing that Jesus teaches you. When he starts to teach you, he's telling us something that's so obvious that we're going to miss it. Prayer takes learning.

Prayer's a lot like falling in love and getting married. It's easy at first. And then it gets complicated. See, at first, especially when I was in Virginia, and the average person in my town got married at the age of 17. Everybody got married at 17, 18. As soon as you got out of high school, you got married. And one of the most interesting things was to try to convince the people about marriage,

and I'm trying to convince you right now about prayer. They would always come in and say, it's easy. I mean, we're in love with each other. We're in love. And we knew it right away, and we've talked to each other, and now we want to get married. And I want to sit down and I want to say, listen, if you want to turn this crush, which is basically all you've got at first when you get married,

no matter what age you are, if you want to turn this crush into something wonderful and lasting and deep, it's going to take a lot of reflection, it's going to take a lot of patience, it's going to take a lot of emotional elbow grease, it's going to take a lot of work. And then the kids used to look at me and they say, well, you don't understand. We love each other. and I wanted to go, hmm, prayer is the same way, especially for a new Christian, prayer is easy. I just go when I tell my father what's on my heart. And that is true.

That is simple. I'm not trying to say prayer has some kind of deep mystical definition. I'm not going to say, ah, your problem is you don't understand what prayer is. No, prayer is going and talking to the father about what's on your heart. But it's hard because in the long run, it takes just as much work, and it takes just as much reflection to do a good job and to learn the depths of prayer as it does to be to be married well can i give you a personal example let me just give you a couple of personal responses i happen to know that it's harder to pray for 30 minutes than it is to preach for 30 minutes it's much harder

you surprised that much harder listen i've had some bad sermons some of you may have heard them they uh you know i can ramble i can sort of forget where i'm going to going. I can sort of lose my place and kind of go off. I've had some bad sermons, but never have they been so bad that I forgot that I was preaching. I mean, I've gotten off the subject. I've gotten off the subject and I've rambled and all that, but I've never gotten so bad that I was going along and I suddenly say, oh, wait, oh, I'm preaching. There's a congregation out there. That's never happened to me. Why? I mean, I'm not that bad. But I can tell you many times in which I have been on my knees before the king of the universe, and I forget that I'm praying.

I don't suppose that's ever happened to you. Oh, I'm praying. That's right. Listen, prayer is harder than preaching. Prayer is tough. You try to focus on the loving king of the universe for 30 minutes, and you will find how weak you are. And John Newton, the great hymn writer says that when he's just trying to pray, just trying as hard as he can to concentrate and pray, he feels so weak, he says sometimes that the buzzing of a fly in the room is an overmatch for my strength. It's destroyed me. Here I am in front of the king of the universe, and this mosquito is killing it. Killing? I can't pray. I can't think. I can't concentrate. Prayer is hard. And the reason it's hard is because prayer is a personal thing. There's nothing

magical about it. It's not a matter of ritual mumbo-jumbo. It's not like meditation. It's not like finding your mantra and finding your, you know, or looking at your Mandela and just sort of getting the hang of it. And, you know, it's tricky. You know, meditation is tricky. You've got to get the hang of it. Prayer is a personal thing. And the reason our prayers are boring, not only to do, but to listen to, and stilted is because we don't know the one we're praying to. I just did a a wedding just yesterday. And like at all weddings, I spent, I was at a rehearsal dinner. Now, rehearsal dinners are great. They're long, two hours long, and you're always surrounded by people you don't know at rehearsal dinners. You sit down with people who are relatives

and you don't know them, you know where they're from, and a couple things, and that's it. Now, when you're sitting by somebody you don't know at all for two hours, conversation you have to work at. Now, it's not something that's terribly off. awful because any of us who have any kind of social skills know that you have to learn how to talk to somebody you don't know and be interesting and be interested, but it takes work, doesn't it? It's nothing natural about it. You sit there and then you say, oh, now what do I say? You know, and you say, well, could I say this or what could I ask? And you have to work at it, and the conversation is a bit stilted. And it's not very familiar. And you used to very often say trivial things. Or sometimes you put your foot in your mouth, don't you? And afterwards you say, now, what did I say that for? That's the way most of us are when we first start to pray. It's absolutely natural. We don't know him. And we say the same things over and over again.

And, by the way, you know, a lot of the conservative churches, the free churches, hate the idea of written, you know, I've had people come to me and say, why do you read prayers? Isn't that vain repetitions? Doesn't the Bible talking about vain repetitious prayers? And I, you know, I don't say this to them, but usually I want to say, well, have you ever gone to listen to people when they just stand? up and pray spontaneously. And you know what you say? When people just get up and pray out of their

hearts, it's just as repetitious. They say, oh, Lord, we just really want to thank you. We just really want to praise you. We just really want to thank you for this opportunity of gathering together here in your presence, and we're just really glad that we're here and thank you, amen. It's just as vain and repetitious. It's actually worse, considerably worse than written prayers. Written prayers don't go in circles. What I'm trying to say is if you ever hear somebody who really knows how to pray, you find that they talk like they know the one they're praying to and their prayers lift you along with them right to heaven and they never repeat themselves

and when you hear them you realize boy prayer is a glorious thing and I don't know what I'm doing yet well how do you learn that it takes time you see when you only have known somebody for two hours and you've only talked to them for two hours by the end of two hours especially the champagne's pretty good you start to loosen up a little bit and you begin to talk to but it's actually

After years, you see, of getting to know somebody. When you get together with a friend, the conversation just goes like this. You're so happy to see them. And a conversation is natural, and the love flows, and the words flow, and the concepts flow. That's what it means to be a good prayer. So all I'm telling you is this. How much time do you put into it? Do you put in at least every day a good chunk of time?

Don't you see how it's more important than your exercise? It's more important than your workout. more important than your meditation, it's more important than your counseling, it's more important than anything else. And if you expect it to happen just naturally, you'll be killed like that helicopter pilot. And you have to, what I'd like you to do before you leave here, especially when we pray at the end, is I'd like you to go to Jesus and say, I've been a fool. I haven't really enrolled in your school. I've been frustrated because my prayer life just hasn't taken off, but I haven't spent the time. I challenge you to pray. To pray.

pray for 20 minutes, 30 minutes a day, and not miss a day just for three weeks, and you see what happens to you. See? The first thing Jesus says is if you don't know prayer is difficult, that it's a profound thing, a deep adventure, you never get to the bottom of, you'll never do a good job at it. The second thing we're taught is the basis of prayer. And the basis of prayer is our father. Basis. Do you know that you never have a conversation with someone without a basis? If you try it, it can be pretty difficult. If you walk up to somebody on the street and say, oh, by the way, could you do something for me? You have no basis for a conversation. Now, in a small town in Kansas, it's one thing, because you can walk up to a stranger in a small town in Kansas,

and you really do have a basis. You're both in the same town. But in New York, there's no basis, and the person will probably turn around and go somewhere else. But if you walk up and say, your best friend told me to come see you about this, He'll have to listen. Why? Because there's a basis. On what basis do you approach God? Jesus tells us right here, very important, very critical. The basis is this. Prayer only works on family terms. As 2025 comes to a close, it should come as no surprise that we have great hope for the year ahead. Because of what God is doing to bring people to faith and to renew

Christians through the gospel teaching and resources you help us provide on our podcast, YouTube channel, broadcast quarterly journal and website, and soon through our translation project. We're grateful that so many of you are partnering with us to spread the message of Christ's love. Thank you. God continues to provide opportunities for us to expand the ways we share the gospel. In 2026, we anticipate adding new international radio broadcast and additional online ministry partnerships, publishing new books, and beginning to make Dr. Keller's sermons available in other languages.

So as we close out the year, we invite you to pray. carefully consider making a year-end gift to Gospel and Life. The year-end gifts we receive are a vital part of how we will prepare for ministry in 2026. Your support allows us to share the story of the gospel with people in over 200 countries, and we are deeply grateful for your participation in this mission. To make a year-end gift, visit gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospel and life.com slash give. And please pray that we would steward your gifts well and that through the ministry of gospel and life, many new people will find the hope and joy of knowing Christ as Savior. Thank you for partnering with us to share the love of Christ with a world that

needs him, because the gospel truly changes everything. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's message. If God is only your creator, and he is your creator, and if he's only your king, and he is your king, prayer doesn't work. He doesn't say, start this way, our king, though he is a king, our creator, though he is a creator, our potentate, though he is, our father. Jesus was the first person to call God Father in the Bible, and it's an incredible thing to do to have that kind, to be that familiar. You know, if you have been ushered into the presence of some chairman of some board or some

influential head of government, somebody you've been dying to see because you really really, really, really need to see that person. You're honored by it, and you're scared to death that you're going to flub it. You don't walk up, you know, like Bill Murray and Ghostbusters, the mayor of New York and say, Louis, you don't do that. And when Jesus Christ approached God and called him Father, everybody was shocked. People are still shocked.

I never forget the three hours I had in a mosque in Philadelphia a couple years ago in which I was speaking to a bunch of Muslims. along with an Islamic speaker on the subject of the fatherhood of God. And the Muslim said, you may never, ever, ever, ever, call God father. You don't have the right to do that. That kind of familiarity and intimacy is absolutely inappropriate for such a great one. And what they mean is, it's absolutely inappropriate for the relationship I've got with him. Jesus Christ was the first one to call God's father,

and then he turns and tells us to do it. Now you say, well, Jesus Christ is, of course, he can call Godfather because look at who he is. He came down from heaven. He's God's natural son. But Jesus tells us, and this is what the gospel is, that if you believe in me, not everybody can do this. If you believe in me and only if you believe in me, you can have the same legal standing. You can be admitted to the table. John 112, as many has believed on him, as many has received him and believed in his name, he gave power, authority,

status to become sons of God. And Galatians 4, verses 4 and 5 says, God sent his son into the world that we might receive adoption as sons. And so what Jesus is saying is, if you belong to me, then you automatically receive my status. See, being born again is a wonderful experience, but in itself it's nothing. Being born again means you're admitted to the family of God.

And now you have power, John 112. you have authority, you now can talk to God as a father. What does that mean? Remember a minute ago I just said the thing that everybody is dying for is a sense of intimacy with God, power and intimacy? This is the whole secret. This is the thing you must get from the sermon. Wake up right now, this is it.

If you say my prayer life is boring, you have never really gotten the hang of what it means to say, our father. Jesus is saying, the fire in your life, the power in your life, and the fire in your prayer life all comes from the degree to which you understand what it means to say, our father. Some people say, why is it that there's no place in the Lord's Prayer where you're supposed to pray in Jesus' name? You know how Jesus all through the Bible says, pray in my name, but in the Lord's Prayer doesn't say anything about praying in Jesus' name? And the answer is it does. When you say, Father, you are coming to Him in Jesus' name.

What you are saying, when you say Father, you're saying, Lord God. Jesus is my sin-bearer, and I've received Him, and therefore I am now, I now have received status as being a son or a daughter. And I now have the God given and the God invited audacity and authority to call you Father. and to expect that kind of love that a father has. I am a father, and I know that the old Anglican prayer book is right when it says, as a father, he is quicker to hear than we are to pray. And it also says he is want to give us far more than we desire or deserve.

I'm a father, and I know that. Now, when I was a Boy Scout, you know how I used to make, fires. It used to put the kindling together and put the little weeds together, the dry grass together. I take a magnifying glass and find out where the sun was and focus the rays of the sun on there and would get

hot, then it would get smoky, then it would burst into flames. Jesus Christ says if your prayer life is drab, if it's boring. In fact, if your life is drab and boring, it's because you have never gotten a grip on what it means if you're a Christian to call God Father.

You've never understood it. In fact, when you start to pray, never go by our father until the fire has started. Sit there and take everything the Bible says and bring it through the magnifying glass, the focus of fatherhood. Reflect. Think about it until the fire burns. Can I give you an example of how recently that happened to me? my sister my sister has adopted two girls she's got five children three natural

born out of her body and two adopted and one of the one it's true of course that in some families the natural children are treated better than the adopted children but don't we all know inherently and instinctively how wrong that is we know that right

and what's so wonderful whenever I'm with my sister and I was with her just four weeks ago three weeks ago She is absolutely, absolutely indiscriminate in her love. She makes no distinction in her behavior toward her natural and her adopted children because there's no distinction in her heart. She does not love the adopted children any less than she loves the natural children.

And of course, we know that that's the right way to be. And then one day as I was watching her do that, it suddenly dawned on me what that means. Do you know what that means? If my sister is a good example, if my sister is able to treat her adopted children with the exact same kind of honor and esteem that she treats her natural children, then how much more true should that probably be of God? And it is. How does God regard Jesus? How much does he love him? How much does he honor him? How much honor does Jesus deserve? You know what Jesus has done. You know what incredible lengths he went to. What incredible oceans he swam to save us. You know that. How much honor does the father owe the son? How much honor and love does the father want to give the son?

How much love does he have for the son? It's incredible, it's infinite. And the Bible tells us that God makes no distinction. He loves us with all the love that he loves his natural son. He loves us to the same degree. that he loves his natural son. That is amazing. I happen to know that you don't believe it.

Because I happen to know that I don't believe it. If I believed it, and if you believed it, we wouldn't be the way we are. We wouldn't be worried, would we? We would never feel sorry for ourselves, would we? We'd never feel resentful and angry that we're getting a bad go in life, would we? You don't believe that. that and that's the reason why your prayer life and my prayer life is so drab because you run by

our father and you get into art in heaven, I'll be that even, and when we get to give me this my day, my daily bread, give me these things, you get down there and then we start to pray with bigness of heart and greatness of heart and we've run by the fatherhood of God and that Jesus Christ says is the basis for your prayer. Don't pray, don't go on until you get that. Do you have that? And by the way, you realize that if this is true, then your prayer life is the litmus test for your relationship with God. How do you know if you're really a Christian?

How do you know? That's a hard question. But I'll tell you this. Your prayer life is the best way to find out. Don't look at whether you witness day and night on the street corner. Don't look at whether you're a moral person. Don't look at whether you go to church. Don't look at even than how much you know your Bible, because you realize other people see that, and it's possible to be motivated out of a desire to look good. It's possible to have an external kind of religion

and be motivated out of environmental factors, but only God sees you when you pray. And as a result, it's your prayer life that tells you what you really made of spiritually. There's only two kinds of religions in the world. There's only two kinds of religion. There's people who use God and people who are serving them. Now, I'll tell you what a user is. A user comes into religion like this.

A user says, look, I've got my goals. I want to be happy. I want to be comfortable. I want to be successful. So you come to God and you say, okay, what do I have to do? Tell me. Do I have to come to church? Okay.

Do I have to clean up my life? Okay. Do I have to pray? Okay. How much? How often? Tell me. It's like union negotiation.

You say, look, I've got things that I want to get done and I'll do what you want, God, let me know. That's using God. And then they're serving God. See, a Christian is someone who says, I see that God's my creator and I owe him everything. And I see that I've tried to live a life of rebellion. I've tried to be in my own master and therefore I deserve to be cut off. And I see that Jesus died for me to forgive me and restore that relationship. And I trust in him. And now, Lord, here's my motivation. I want to serve you. I want to serve you and know you. You've already given me far more than I deserve. Let me serve you. Now, a user and a server sit together in the same pews in churches. And the question is, how do you tell the difference? It's their prayer

life. For example, a user will only pray when he or she is in trouble. You know, there's no real yearning and desire to serve and know the master. There's just a desire to get what needs to be gotten. And when you get in trouble, you pray up a storm, and when you get out, you get out, of trouble, you have no motivation left. And I give you another difference. A user and a server differ utterly when your prayers aren't answered. Because you see, a server knows that the one he's praying to is a father. And when your father doesn't give you what you want, you can wrestle and struggle with that, but you still know he's a father. And you say, I don't like this and I'm upset about it, but I know this. I can't make you jump through hoops for me.

I'm not in this religion for you to serve me. I'm in this religion for me to serve you. But a user, when you pray and you pray and you pray and you're not getting what you want, the user says, what good is this religion? Which shows that all along you were using God. Robert Murray McShane, the great Scottish pastor, says, what you are on your knees praying before God, that is all you are and nothing more. what you are in prayer on your knees before God

that is what you are spiritually and nothing more well there's one more thing and I guess I can move to it next week try to be here if you can the other thing I just point out is the Bible teaches us that you must start with praise prayer has to begin with praise the essential prayer the primary prayer the first prayer is praise if you notice there's only three little petitions

in the Lord's prayer three give us to stay our daily bread forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not in a temptation, deliver us from evil. Three, everything else is about God. And every prayer you ever see in the Bible is full of adoration and praise, 50% praise, 70% praise, 90% praise,

look at your, look at your prayers. Is that how your prayers are? I tell you what my prayers are like. They're much more like a grocery list. And as a result, our prayer life stinks. because we're not following the pattern. Two quick examples. You know what was really wrong with Job?

You know, Job had a lot of problems in his life. Into his life came problems. His children were killed. His career was ruined. He got sick. And he rushes into the presence of God and starts to pray like this. Oh, Lord, why did you do this? What's going on?

You've got to do this for me. You've got to get me out of this fix. You've got to do this. You've got to do this. That's not praying. That's ventilation. That's demanding. And then there's a place in the book of Job where God comes and starts just talking about himself.

He says, Job, where were you when I stretched out the foundation of the earth? Where were you when I stretched out the heavens like a garment? A ray from my eye can destroy galaxies. I hug the stars. What in the world is God doing? That's very confusing. And not only that, it gets confusing when at the end it seems to have healed Job. Job stops his complaining.

Job humbles himself. Job quiets his heart. Why? What God is doing is he's making Job go back over. Job rushed in and started with petition and started with all kinds of requests. And God insists that he goes back and start with adoration. Start just remembering who God is. Start recollecting the greatness of God.

And the more he does it, as God just says, Job, do you see my greatness? Do you see my power? Do you see my wisdom? Do you see my majesty? all of the self-pity drains out of Job because your self-pity comes from forgetting that it's all of grace that you deserve much worse and all of his worry drains out of him because your worry comes from forgetting God's goodness that he's good and all of his resentment drains out of him because

he forgets that it's all of God's mercy you see all of our problems come forgetting who God is and as God just makes Job recollect and adore him you see Job's pain going away Job gets no answers for the reasons that his children were killed or anything like that. All he begins to see is how great God is. And it quiets his heart, and it heals him, and it humbles him. And he says, I heard of you with my ear, now I see you with my eye, I repent. Forgive my words. Job is quieted and healed because God makes him go back and do it right.

I know a lady that years ago I preached on this once and a lady came to me and said that for years she had always done mostly petition she spent all of her time praying about all of her problems and when she was done with her prayers she felt worse she says one day I decided to go in and spend 80% of my time in adoration before I got to my request

she says it amazed me the very first time my life was changed forever she told me this because I suddenly realized the reason I worried and got so upset and scared was because I didn't realize how great he was. And by the time I thought about his greatness and his wisdom and all he's done for me, when I got to the time for petition, I just said, here, why am I worried? Here, take it. She gave those needs, and they were gone.

Adoration is the only thing that will heal us. Down deep at the base of our souls, we really believe that God wants us miserable. You know that. We believe that. Can you imagine a father taking a little boy into F.A.O. Swartz and showing him around the toy store. And after he gets the little boy all excited, he turns and says, do you see it all, son? Yeah, yeah. You'll have none of it.

I forbid you to have any of it. Eat your heart out. Let's go home. Now, what would happen to that kid? His life would forever be distorted. Right? He would never be able to trust people. He would see the world as a cold place. He'd never trust his father again. I submit to you that our lives are justice distorted. Because you see, when the serpent came to Adam and Eve and said, has God said,

you shall eat of nothing out of the garden? God never said that. God said, I just don't want you to eat this one tree. And I'm not going to tell you why. Because if I told you why, then you'd be able to obey out of your understanding and your reason and out of pragmatism. But I'm not going to tell you why I'd want you to eat this tree. I just don't want you to eat this tree just because I said so. Just because you love me. And the serpent twisted it around and says, see, God's a tyrant. God won't let you have anything.

And the serpent planted in the base of our brain the belief that God's like that father at F.A.O. Swartz. and we do believe that because some of us have got things that God has not given us and as a result we believe that we don't understand

why we believe he wants us miserable and I know we believe that because if we didn't believe that we would trust him utterly and live entirely for his glory but we don't and the only thing that can heal us

is adoration when you adore you remember his grace and you heal yourself of the tumor that blinds us our anxiety our anger our worry

they all come from that distorted belief, and adoration alone can heal it. Jesus Christ said, I want you to pray all the time so you don't faint. Those are the only two alternatives. You can pray or faint. What's your choice? Some of you have been fainting this week. Or what else do you call what you've been doing this week? You can pray or you can faint.

what's your choice let's pray our father first of all we come to you and say enroll us in your school we haven't been trying to pray we haven't been working at it and secondly we say

Lord help us to think about your adoption help us to imagine and think and rejoice in it until the fire starts to burn so that our prayers have power again so we can pray with boundless confidence and lastly

Oh, Lord God, if there's anybody here whose prayer is a grocery list, who only prays during times of trouble, and who doesn't know you as Father, may they right now come to you through Jesus, receiving Him as Savior, so that they can receive power to become sons of God. And now, Father, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. on the Gospel and Life podcast. We hope that today's teaching encouraged you to go deeper into God's Word. You can help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit gospelonlife.com.

Today's sermon was recorded in 1990. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. You know,