Pentecost 7
July 27, 2025
“Lord, Teach Us to Pray”
Isaiah Chapter 6: “Oh, woe is me; for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips; I come from a people with unclean lips, and I have seen the Lord!” Isaiah spoke these words from the confines of God’s own throne room, being in complete terror at the thought of sinfulness embodied in the prophet and the holiness shining forth from that eternal throne. Isaiah was very much aware of his unworthy state. He despaired in the knowledge of his desperate condition.
What are we to do in the filth of our sin, when the stench of our breath is reeking, and we live on this “Sodom” called the planet Earth? Most certainly, we are to be pitied! Yet, the other aspect of our poverty is that we are in great need. If we are to survive this lifetime still standing in the end and if we are going to be able to enter the confines of God’s throne room, we need to know if the pleas and pleadings of sinners such as ours will be heard?
Under God’s judgment we have nothing! Because of our sin we are nothing! Before God we came from dust and unto dust we are destined to return. There must come about something different if we are to have some candle-flicker of hope! We must become different if God and we are going to have a relationship. If God and man are going to coexist, there will have to be something special which will reestablish the broken lines of communication between heaven and earth.
Isaiah’s lips were cleansed with divine fire. And then he lived, even in the presence of God’s purity, divinity, and holiness! Each person who would dare to speak to God will have to be cleansed. Then they can stand before Him, and they can speak and be heard. After we become something different, no longer enemies but God’s children, then we can speak from a cleansed heart and we will be heard, because that is our Father’s promise and design.
But after being declared new, we are still stuck in a creation gone bad. Our spiritual and physical poverty is all too apparent. We still fall back into sinful thoughts, words, and deeds for which we must make confession. We still must deal with a world no longer attuned to the harmony of God’s Will and of paradise. And even if our coffers are full and our worries are few, we must still reckon ourselves poor because “Money can’t buy [us] love,” especially the Lord’s. Our wealth pertains only to this life and not to that which is yet to come. Our property and possessions may lead us to false security that diminishes our dependence on the One to whom we owe all things.
And when we have squandered our livelihood on this world’s decadence, we need to know that we have a Father in heaven who still wants us safe at home with Him, and who will provide what is lacking in our hearts, souls, minds, and safety deposit boxes. In His home we will never be at a loss for anything.
So, Lord, teach us to pray! After You have — by Your cleansing sacrifice — healed us, then move us to rely on Your love and generosity. Exercise our faith and total reliance on You by the holy thoughts Your Spirit now conjures up in our hearts. Lord, teach us to pray!
It ought to be quite clear by now that we pray to Someone who has only the highest concern for us. He doesn’t want us to remain in our sin and under condemnation. He doesn’t want us to suffer under the adverse powers of this world, nor of the devil and his partners in sin. Our Father wants us safe within the bosom of His family and secure in our relationship as His dear children.
Furthermore, from His vantage point He can use all at His disposal to bring about good from evil, life from death, straight from crooked, height from dark depths, abundance from nothing, and joy from despair. When we ask the question of our Lord Jesus to teach us to pray, we know from the very beginning that this is no spinning of wheels, no empty and meaningless exercise. The Lord wants us to pray, and He will come to rescue us and move us to worship and adore Him as we are given the life and strength to do what we were made to do.
Lord, teach us to pray: Our Father, who art in heaven.
Then, we are to ask, not only for ourselves but for all others too, that all our activity would hallow His name, would return the existence and influence of His kingdom in this world gone haywire, and further promote even more activity done in line with His pure and holy Will.
The life we ask God to advance in us would be a life that in every way would not shame God’s name. The church would further the true faith, once and for all time, delivered to the saints. But in the church are found all sorts of men and their wickedness that doesn’t support God’s clear Word and Will but only furthers their own ambition for power.
Why are the sheep scrambling? It’s because they are not hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd. There is danger, uncertainty, and foreboding in the unclear call of the hireling. There is fleece and mutton awaiting the thief who has crept in over the fence, and not through the gate. He wears a costume of piety to sneak up on the sheep and demand of them the ultimate and complete self-sacrifice so that he, the thief, can grow fat, rich, and powerful.
But because of God’s grace — even in light of our feebly and faintly praying the prayer Jesus taught us — the Kingdom is preserved! Even if it is as a small remnant! God’s will is done so that sanctified lives are begun by God’s Spirit and preserved by that same Spirit through the working of the inspired letter of holy Scripture preached, taught, read, and meditated on. The Spirit is at work by Water and the Word to make more children for the heavenly Father furthering God’s Kingdom one soul at a time.
Will we live on? Will we have enough? Will our future remain secure? Those questions continue to roll around in our heads. How silly of Americans of all people throughout the world to be so concerned? We among all other people in the world have — even at poverty level — more than others could ever dream of. Yet if we don’t have life with all its amenities, we figure we are starving and we hate the person who has been blessed with a pile of treasures because he throws little – or nothing – our way.
We need a new attitude as well as daily provision. So, Lord, teach us to pray! Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. We repent of not only our petty jealousies, but we confess as sin that we are the descendants of Adam who do just as He and Eve did. We must repent of who we are as well as what we have done. And it is better to do that under the present circumstances because we know that the evil one has been defeated! We know that our sin has been washed away in the blood of the Lamb. We know that the Father’s anger has been turned to acceptance because He has received the death of His own Son as the payment for our sins, and He stands triumphant over the grave as vindication of our new and everlasting life won by our victorious Savior.
In this way, we pray deliver us from evil. We already have had our sins forgiven. The devil stands as a defeated enemy though he still acts as if life is meant to be evil and death as usual for us. Heaven is open to us because our Father is in heaven, His Son has done all the work necessary for our salvation, and the Spirit is busy accommodating our hearts and lives to the benefits of God’s Word being sure and certain, God’s will being done, and His kingdom having come among us also.
Do not hesitate to call on the Lord. Our brothers and sisters in the world may be slow to answer but not God! In fact, the Lord we have gathered to worship today has already presupposed our need and has already set the world and its affairs in motion to see to it that as His Will is done on earth and in heaven we live, and we are blessed, and we prosper for now and always.
Don’t forget all His benefits, and prayer must naturally be more frequent and more easy and more natural to the one who has become convinced that we are speaking to a Lord (among everything that is called god and lord around us) who is eager to draw us closer to Himself. Our God is a consuming fire to all who ignore him or who rebel against him, but to as many as call on His name He makes them His children without delay. He doesn’t frustrate us for some selfish purpose that takes precedence over our deliverance. Our rescue and the restoration of what He has made is His first priority.
So, when you pray there is no need for vain and thoughtless repetition. The Lord is eager to listen and longs to hear from you. You don’t need much training. The Lord is open to the language of your now-blood-cleansed heart, and the deep groanings of His Spirit uttered in your weakness. The Bible says that we are to pray without ceasing and it has been God’s work in you to make every breath you breathe a confession of His name, an utterance of complete dependence on Him, and a witness to the blessings of your trust in Him, who He is and what He does. He accomplishes every good thing in you and me for the sake of our crucified and risen Lord so that whatever you ask in His name, He will give it! And as He rescues you, you will glorify Him.
The Lord has taught us to pray. He gives every good and perfect gift. He has made us new! And that leads us to even more prayer and praise. And He abundantly blesses again and again. So, we pray even more! And the Lord is seen as God in His work! The Father preserves us! The Son has redeemed us! The Holy Spirit is now sanctifying us for even more godly living. His loving kindness does continue, and it will endure forever! It will endure forever! We will live now and forever to the unending praise of our God! For He alone has done it and to Him goes all the glory!
Amen