Sermon - Reminiscere 2024 - Matthew 15:21-28

Christ and the Woman from Canaan, Pieter Lastman, 1617

Prayer is based upon faith in God’s Goodness

1. What is prayer?

2. How do we pray?

This season of the church year that we are in, known as Lent, is a penitential season. Meaning, that this is a time for increased meditation on our need for Jesus as our Savior. As such, the church has historically observed Lent with increased almsgiving, increased fasting, and increased praying. Among those three, the only one that really gets much traction among us today is increased prayer. Formally we offer things such as Lenten devotionals so that we might spend more time in Bible study and prayer, and we have midweek services so that again we might spend more time in God’s word and prayer.

In order to perhaps further help us pray more regularly, I’d like to spend this sermon speaking quite directly about prayer. Explaining what prayer is and the driving force behind prayer, and also very practically talking about prayer so that we all might have a better understanding of how to pray in our homes. My goal with this sermon is quite simple: I want you to understand what prayer is and to know how to do it, all so that you might have a healthy daily prayer life in your home.

So what is prayer? Some describe prayer as wrestling with God. We heard of Jacob quite literally wrestling with the preincarnate Christ in our Old Testament reading. Or we heard of the Canaanite woman metaphorically wrestling with God as she prayed to God even when it appeared as if He were ignoring her, and she didn’t quit until she received an answer.

That can be a fine way of describing prayer, however it’s not very clear because prayer is more than wrestling with God, and it’s also much simpler than that. Prayer is, to put it very plainly, speaking to God and specifically with words. Prayer is more than wishful thinking or hoping. Just because you want something to happen, or you wish for something in your mind, that’s not the same as prayer. Prayer is speaking to God with words. They don’t have to be eloquent words or even very specific words, but words nonetheless.

However, before words even come out of our mouths, something must drive us towards prayer. That something is faith. The Canaanite woman prayed to Jesus so fervently because of her faith! Our Lord exclaimed: “O woman, great is your faith!” In order for a Christian to pray to God that Christian must first be filled with faith that God is good. Prayer is based upon faith in God’s goodness.

We can see evidence of the Canaanite woman’s faith in her words: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” She believed that Jesus had the power to have mercy on her and chase the devil away from her daughter, because she believed that He is her Lord, and that He is the Son of David. In other words she had faith that Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God who is good and compassionate, who chases away the evil demons.

Thus, our prayers are based upon faith in God’s goodness, and that belief is based upon God’s good promises and His good actions. Presumably the Canaanite woman had somehow heard of the miracles that Jesus was performing and she recognized that He must be the Son of David, the Savior promised in the scriptures. Likewise, our faith in God’s goodness is based upon God’s promises and His compassionate actions. For instance, when we pray for bodily healing, we do that because God has bodily healed so many in the scriptures, therefore He is able to do it, and perhaps it may even be His will to bodily heal us as well.

But the important point here is that we pray to God based upon His goodness in promises and actions; we pray for good blessings from God because that’s what God does. Our prayer is acceptable to God not because of who we are or because we deserve it, not even because of our great faith, but because God is good, loving, and compassionate. When we pray we’re not praying for anything other than what God has promised.

With that in mind, we should recognize that when we pray we’re not really changing God’s mind or manipulating Him to do our will. Sometimes we get that impression from the bible when, for example, God tells Moses He’s going to destroy the Israelites completely and Moses pleads with God not to do that, and then God relents of the disaster that He was going to do. It sounds like God changed His mind, kind of like how we might change our minds to put on some different clothes. But God is changeless and His will is eternal, and His will is always done. When Moses prayed He simply prayed based upon who God is and what God does. When God relented of disaster it’s not because God changed but it’s really because He doesn’t change and it’s according to His character to be merciful and relent of disaster. 

Understanding that God is merciful, compassionate, loving, faithful, and relents of disaster, let us pray based upon faith in God’s goodness. So, let’s now answer the question: How do we pray? I’d like this to be eminently practical for you and applicable right now in your life. If you already have a very active prayer life, great! I hope this encourages you to continue on in your prayers and perhaps even grow in prayer.

First, two basic principles: Be intentional and be habitual. Don’t just assume that you will pray when you get a moment or whenever it fits into your schedule. In my experience, unless I make it a priority it doesn’t happen. So pick set times for your prayers, and always do it at those times. For example, I say my personal prayers first thing in the morning before I do anything else, or my family does our daily devotions at supper time. If you miss a day or two or a month, pick yourself back up and start again.

Next, stick to a set form of devotion. The thing about habits is that you do certain things nearly the same way every day. In the Small Catechism we have a form for short prayer every day, morning and night. Make the sign of the cross, and say: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Then confess the Creed, pray the Lord’s Prayer, then the Morning or Evening Prayer, then pray for whatever other things are in need of prayer.

Then in addition to your private prayers, it is good to pray together as a family and do daily devotions as a household. My family often follows the order of Vespers or Compline from the hymnal, but just using the little daily prayer sheet we provide at church would also be good. The goal here is that you pray, read the Bible, sing, and memorize some scripture together as a family. If you’re already using the Portals of Prayer devotions, that’s good, however if you’re only reading the short devotion and you’re not reading the Bible, then you’re missing out on the more important part. Portals of Prayer is meant to be a portal that leads you to greater devotion and prayer, that leads you into the scriptures themselves.

Ideally the head of the household, the husband, leads this because God has made the husband the head and the leader of the family, and in a way of speaking he is the pastor in his household. Of course if there isn’t a man in the house then ladies, go ahead, but men this is your privilege and duty. Just as it would be shocking for the pastor of a congregation to never hold services on Sundays, so should it be shocking for the husband to never lead devotions in his home.

To conclude the sermon today I’d like to model what these daily devotions may look like in your home, albeit abbreviated since I’m not going to do the readings or hymn for the sake of brevity during the sermon. If you picked up your Daily Prayer sheet before the service, please have it handy. And remember, God is good, He loves to answer prayers. See that Christ went to the cross for you and suffered on your behalf. If He has done this for you, then rest assured that He has the authority to answer all of your prayers. God is good, so let us always pray and trust in His goodness.

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the Beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

We say our Bible Verse for 1 Corinthians 4: “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”

Then we would pray the Psalm, and read the appointed reading for the day. Now let us say the Apostles Creed. Then we would sing the hymn together.

Now let us say the Catechism together. 

Now we pray the Lord’s Prayer.

Now the head of the family prays the Collect of the Week.

Then the prayers may conclude with Morning or Evening Prayer, and the particular prayers the family has. So let us Pray. 

Lord, have mercy upon your people. You are compassionate and slow to anger and you answer prayer. Help us to always confidently pray to you, trusting in your unending mercies. Amen.