I invite you to turn with me this morning to 1 Kings 18. 1 Kings 18. We read together the last few verses of the chapter, verses 41 through 46. A familiar chapter, I trust, probably to all, even the boys and girls. Chapter 18 begins, of course, Elijah had been gone for three years from Israel. In verse 1 of chapter 18, it says, After a long time in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah, Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land. And of course, throughout this chapter, we have the familiar episode of the battle of the gods on Mount Carmel. And after that battle takes place, then verse 39 says, When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, The Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God. We take up our reading in verse 41. And Elijah said to Ahab, Go, eat, and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain. So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground, and put his face between his knees. Go and look toward the sea, he told his servants. And he went up and looked. There is nothing there, he said. Seven times Elijah said, Go back. The seventh time the servant reported, a cloud as small as a man's hand is rising from the sea. So Elijah said, Go and tell Ahab, Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you. Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds. The wind rose. A heavy rain came on and Ahab rode off to Jezreel. The power of the Lord came upon Elijah and tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel. And if you would also turn with me in the back of the Psalter, a hymnal to page 57, Lord's Day 45 once again. We considered a few weeks ago questions and answers 116 and 118. This morning, we consider question and answer 117 of Lord's Day 45. Page 57 in the back of the Psalter hymnal as we confess this answer together. Question 117 asks, How does God want us to pray so that He will listen to us? First, we must pray from the heart to no other than the one true God who has revealed Himself in His Word, asking for everything He has commanded us to ask for. Second, we must acknowledge our need and misery, hiding nothing, and humble ourselves in His majestic presence. Third, we must rest on this unshakable foundation. Even though we do not deserve it, God will surely listen to our prayer because of Christ our Lord. That is what He promised us in His Word. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we considered a few weeks ago, God has given to His people the gift of prayer to communicate with Him. And I trust that you understand what a blessed gift that is. That God has, in that sense, condescended to His people. That we might be able to have an audience with Him. That He will hear us. Remember, as we said, communication is vital to the life and the vitality of a relationship. Even in our human relationships, communication is absolutely necessary for that relationship to be successful. Prayer is necessary when it comes to enjoying a saving relationship with God on account of the saving work of Jesus Christ. Prayer is the Christian's vital breath. It is the oxygen of the soul. It is the lifeline that connects the believer to God. A Christian life without prayer is no Christian life at all. In fact, not only does God require us to demonstrate our thankfulness to Him through prayer, it is impossible for Christians not to do this. It's impossible. Prayer is natural for the born-again believer, just as natural as breathing is for the human body. But then not only is prayer necessary, as we've already seen, but it is also necessary to pray properly. Properly. The proper attitude or posture in prayer is no minor matter. It's very important, and that's because, as question 117 suggests, God will not hear all that we might call prayer. That question again asks, how does God want us to pray so that He will listen to us? Or as the older version of the Catechism says, what belongs to such prayer as God is pleased with and will hear? God will not hear all that we might be tempted to call prayer, which ought to cause us to stop and think for a few moments about some of the prayers that are offered in society, in some of the public places. Some of the token prayers that are offered. Does God hear them? God will only hear that with which He is pleased. James 4 verse 3 says, You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss. That means that one asks in an evil manner or with wrong motives or without trust and belief. In other words, they ask in a way that is not pleasing to God. The Old Testament prophet Amos prophesied in a time when God's people, everything looked good religiously on the outside, but on the inside, Israel was all messed up, deformed. And therefore the Lord says through Amos, take away from me the noise of your songs, for I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments. Their prayers were not pleasing to God. He would not hear them. Beloved, our prayers are to have meaning. But that meaning does not depend, first of all, on how smart we are or what fancy words we might use in prayer or even on the length of our prayers. But the meaning comes from a proper heart and a proper attitude. And therefore, I preach this morning the call to God-pleasing prayer as we consider, first of all, the proper heart direction and then secondly, the proper heart attitude. Again, prayer by its very nature expresses the believer's relationship to God. It gives expression to that relationship and therefore it must please God. And since prayer is an expression of that relationship, God-pleasing prayer necessarily includes the proper heart direction. How does God want us to pray so that He will listen to us? First, we must pray from the heart to no other than the one true God who has revealed Himself in His Word asking for everything He has commanded us to ask for. The only way to come before the true God is to know the true God and to know Him from the heart. And of course, this is talking about a believing heart, a heart of faith in the one true God, a heart that calls upon God in truth. A true knowledge of God is to govern and guide our prayers and there's only one place to get this true knowledge and that's from God's Word. The only way to come before Him who is the God of salvation in order to worship Him and glorify Him and have communion with Him is to know Him as the God of salvation as He has revealed Himself in His Word. Paul says that the invisible attributes of God, His eternal power, and His Godhead are clearly seen in creation so that all men are without excuse. Yet creation cannot bring even one to a saving knowledge and faith in Jesus Christ. I can only know Him as the God of my salvation who forgives my sins, the one to whom I can confidently pray. I can only know Him in this way through His Word revealed in Christ Jesus, applied to my heart by the Holy Spirit. David says in Psalm 36, verse 9, For with you is the fountain of life. In your light we see light. And the more fully and the more thoroughly God's people grow in the true knowledge of God, then the better equipped they are to have a heart-to-heart talk with God, and the more God-pleasing their prayers will be. You see, beloved, you cannot separate the Word of God and prayer. the two are to be joined together like the hand and the glove. Without the Word of God, prayer is nothing more than empty meditation. That dialogue between God and man includes both His Word and our prayers. And God must speak to us first. If He doesn't speak to us first, then we don't know what to say to Him. It's only by the Word of God that we know the God to whom we are to be praying. Elijah, in the episode that we read together, I believe, gave evidence of praying from the heart and the knowledge of who God is as he had revealed himself to Elijah. Elijah knew that God isn't just some supreme being that is far off, but he knew that he is personal and that he hears the cries of his people. And therefore, as Elijah withdraws from the crowds and goes off alone to spend time with God in prayer, He fixes his heart on God and he can pray to the point for the rain that God had already promised. As Elijah went off to pray, his confidence was the very Word of God who said, Call upon Me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you and you will glorify Me. Psalm 145 verse 18 says, The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. And that means calling upon God from the heart. A heart transformed by the renewing power of the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 11, verse 6 says, And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. Beloved, apart from a faithful heart, One only gives lip service to God. Boys and girls, that means one might say the right thing or say the things that sound good, but not believe it. It's not really true for that person. And that's what the scribes and Pharisees were guilty of as Jesus applied to them the words of Isaiah 29, which say, These people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Prayer that is not from the heart is not true prayer and is nothing more than idle chatter. It is hypocrisy. And God will not hear that. Yet when we are conscious by the grace of God, when we are conscious that we address in prayer the true and living God as He has revealed Himself, then that faith-directed consciousness determines the content of our prayers. As the Catechism says, we call upon Him asking for everything, what? He has commanded us to ask for. And that means, beloved, that our prayers are not to be thoughtless, asking for simply anything and everything through His Spirit. God helps us to pray, as we might say, with holy intelligence, instructed by the Word of God. And when we pray according to what God commands us to pray for, And when we pray in the way that God commands us to pray, that gives glory and praise to God, but it also is a confession, isn't it? That His plan is perfect. We are commanded to ask of Him, as answer 118 says, for everything we need spiritually and physically. Praying for all that God has commanded us to ask of Him is a confession that He knows what's best for me and that He will give me only that which is necessary for my well-being and for my salvation. You see, the content of our prayers is not to be that we inform or we instruct God how to govern and deal with us, thinking, well, after all, I know what's best for me. No one knows better than me than that. I know what's best. No. But the content of our prayers is that our wills be conformed to His will and that we willingly submit to Him. And our confidence, beloved, our confidence in Him is as 1 John 5 verse 14 says that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. He hears us. To pray to the one true God from the heart means to confess total dependence upon Him knowing that He knows what I need even before I ask Him. And praise God, beloved, that means that I can't lead God astray. But also I must not try to lead God astray. The believer's God-pleasing prayer is to be for only that which glorifies God and contributes to our profit, our well-being, our salvation. But our prayers are also to include that God would refuse our request, That He would not give to us what we ask. If it would not glorify Him, or if it would not be for our eternal good. Congregation prayer, without the proper heart direction, is like a letter addressed to whom it may concern. And boys and girls, you don't know who's going to read that kind of a letter. You don't even know if it's going to get read. You have no idea, no confidence that it will get answered. And that kind of a prayer is generic. And the words no sooner leave your lips than they drop to the floor. Or as one commentator said, prayers that might use beautiful words are like soap bubbles that are beautiful indeed, but as they rise to the ceiling, they pop. That's the end of them. But those who have been given the gift of the heart of flesh, cleansed by the Spirit for the sake of Christ's blood, they pray to the Heavenly Father who not only hears the prayers of His children, but He is both willing and able to grant us that which we need. He's not like the gods of our imaginations or the idol gods fashioned by men's hands which have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear, mouths but cannot speak, feet but cannot walk, hands but cannot handle. And boys and girls, I trust that you would never even think of praying to a statue, something created by man's hands, or even a doll. Think about a doll. We think of dolls that have such fine features and perfect characteristics. But they're hollow. They're empty inside. But that's not our God. He is the sovereign Creator of heaven and earth who owns this world and He owns everything in it, who has made us after His own image and He recreates us by His grace in Christ Jesus. And only when we know Him by His grace, as He has revealed Himself to us in His Word and His Son, only then can we come to Him with a proper heart attitude. The proper heart direction is to come to the one true God as He has revealed Himself in His Word. But the proper heart attitude includes, first of all, the element of humility. How does God want us to pray so that He will listen to us? Second, we must acknowledge our need and misery, hiding nothing, and humble ourselves in His majestic presence. God reveals His majesty to us in His Word as He reveals Himself to us by the illumination of the Holy Spirit. And we will only come to Him in humility when we come to Him in the consciousness and the understanding of His glory and His majesty. Only when we gaze into the mirror of His majesty will we then see our reflection which reveals our need and our misery. In other words, we will only put God first when we recognize who we are compared to who He is. He is the Creator. We are the creature. He is perfectly holy, but apart from Jesus Christ, we are unholy. We are imperfect and unholy. Scripture says, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All are conceived in sin, and not one is righteous. He is the God of salvation. And each one of us is in desperate need of salvation. He is the Lord, the fullness of all riches, the overflowing fountain of all good, but we are empty, always in need of Him. Congregation, there is nothing we can bring to Him to add to His infinite fullness. Instead, we come to Him as empty cups to the fountain of life, needing to be filled. And what is our true need? What is our true need? Opinions may vary. We might say that we need food and clothing, we need transportation, we need education, and therefore we need financial resources. And of course, if you think of it in that way, the list could be endless. And some of these indeed are legitimate needs. Our Lord taught us to pray for our daily bread and all that that means. But our real need, beloved, is not first of all physical. It's spiritual. Our real need is to have the forgiveness of sins. To be righteous before God. And to be reconciled with God. Because apart from that, our physical needs mean absolutely nothing. Our real need is that all things work together for good for our salvation. Our misery is being lost in sin. And apart from a saving knowledge of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, We can only be miserable. But when God's grace illumines our vision to behold the majesty of God and to recognize our desperate condition compared to His majesty, then the Holy Spirit of God brings us in humility to our knees in humble dependence upon God. And therefore, our prayer will not first of all be that God take away the sickness and the distress. But our prayer will first of all be that He accomplish His purpose through our sickness and distress. Our prayer is to be that God would polish and mold and sanctify us through our sickness and distress in order to prepare us for heaven. Our prayer is to be first of all that God's glory be revealed and that He prepare us for that eternal kingdom through the events of life. Before we pray that God will take away the difficult times, if it is His will, we must pray that His eternal purpose be fulfilled through the difficult times of life. Before He gives us food and drink, may He draw us closer to Himself through our growling stomachs that we might indeed recognize that He is the giver of every good and perfect gift. Before we say, what shall we eat or drink, or with what shall we be clothed? We are called to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto us. We have so many petitions, don't we? So many petitions that we bring to the Lord. But beloved, when we truly know our need and our misery, and the majesty of God, then the first thing that we would pray for for ourselves is, Father, forgive me. True humility means that we have forfeited everything. And therefore we come to God with a confession of our utter unworthiness in ourselves to receive anything from Him. And we deserve nothing but eternal condemnation. We are totally dependent upon the saving, mercy, and grace of God in Jesus Christ and totally dependent upon God for all things necessary for body and soul. Elijah demonstrated that humility and dependence. His physical posture was a reflection of the posture of his heart. He bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. And by this, he demonstrated that he was unworthy to come before the Lord of glory. He had God's promise, go present yourself to Ahab and I will send rain. Well, I've done my part, God. now I'm going to sit back and watch you do your part. No, that's not what Elijah did. His posture was a visible picture of Abraham's words in Genesis 18, verse 27, where he says, Indeed, now I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord. In Elijah, we can see that the more we recognize the majesty of God and the more that we receive His favor, the more we will be humbled by a sense of our own unworthiness and insignificance. And therefore, Elijah's physical posture is to be the posture of our hearts. A second element of the proper heart attitude connected with humility is that we come in prayer to God knowing that we can only come to Him in Jesus Christ. The catechism beautifully says that God will certainly hear our prayer because of Christ our Lord. The only ground, the absolute only ground upon which we may plead for the grace of God is on the ground of Christ's perfect work and His perfect righteousness. A work that satisfies for all my sins and a righteousness freely given to us. We have nothing worthy to bring to God. We can contribute nothing to our own salvation, again, except for our need to be saved. But other than that, we can contribute nothing because all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags as Isaiah says. You remember last week, seminarian Mike Brown beautifully explained this out. Boys and girls, if you bring a disgusting, filthy rag to your mom, she's going to say, get that out of my sight. Get it out of my house. And that's what God says with regard to the righteousnesses that we try to bring to Him and say, look at what I did. Get that out of my sight. I will only look upon the righteousness of my Son, Jesus Christ. We must understand that nothing in our hands we bring, but simply to Christ's cross, we are to cling. And for the sake of Christ's righteousness, beloved, we are to hunger and thirst for righteousness and have a real desire for the forgiveness of sins and to be delivered from evil. Is that your desire? Can you truly say that that's your desire? More than anything else, to be forgiven of your sins and to be delivered from evil? Jesus Christ is the anchor of our souls into the very presence of God. Apart from Him, we can't even come near to God's presence. But He is the anchor, firm and secure in the presence of God. And we are connected there through Him. And therefore, we can sing in humility, but also with confidence. Upon that cross of Jesus, mine eye at times can see the very dying form of one who suffered there for me. And from my smitten heart with tears, two wonders I confess. The wonders of His glorious love and my unworthiness. For the sake of Jesus and on the ground of His work, our desire is to be that God's name be praised, that His kingdom come, that His will be done, and that all of that be superior and before our wills, our kingdom, and our names, so that we might confess content to let the world go by to no gain nor loss. My sinful self, my only shame. My glory, all the cross. But that heart directed toward God with the attitude of humility for Jesus' sake must also then include trust. How does God want us to pray so that He will listen to us? Third, we must rest on this unshakable foundation even though we do not deserve it. God will surely listen to our prayer because of Christ our Lord. That is what He promised us in His Word. We are to rest on this unshakable foundation of Jesus Christ. We are to trust. God will not withhold anything from His only begotten Son and He will not withhold from those He sees clothed in the robes of Christ's righteousness. From them, He will not withhold that which we need. For Jesus' sake, He will hear our prayers. That's His promise to us. And what a beautiful promise that is, beloved. I hope it's a promise that you cherish in your heart, that God will hear your prayer for the sake of Jesus. In the business world, it's often said it's not what you know. It's who you know. And again, with prayer, it's not in your beautiful style or anything that is about you with your prayers. But it's in who you know. It's only in Jesus Christ. He said, Most assuredly I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you. Beloved, this is the truth that we are to teach to our children. The truth that Kevin and Tani again promised to teach their children. To teach, first of all, about the one true God as He has revealed Himself in His Word to teach their children about the truth that God will hear and answer their prayers for Jesus' sake. That our children too might have the confidence in the simplest of prayers. That God will hear them. God bless this food for Jesus' sake. Amen. Again, Elijah prayed according to God's promise of rain. He didn't just sit back. He didn't just say, well, you said it, now do it. He prayed. He prayed fervently. He prayed perseveringly. He prayed watchfully. He expected that God would hear him and answer him. He wasn't disappointed. Those who offer God prayer that is pleasing to Him, who look to Him in faith, hope, and trust with all humility, will be heard of God. That's God's promise to all those He gives to Christ and brings into a saving relationship with Himself. What's the difference between those who offer God-pleasing prayer by His grace and those who offer prayer that is selfish and offensive to God, which God will not hear? You remember, I trust, the parable of the Pharisee and the publican or the tax gatherer who both came to the temple to pray. And while the Pharisees stood and boasted of himself in prayer, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men. I'm not like this sinner, this tax collector over here. I do all these good things. The tax collector threw himself in the mercy of God. God, have mercy on me, the sinner. That's how he said it. As if he was the only one. And the Bible says, I tell you, this man, the tax collector, went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Oh, beloved, to be declared justified. Do you remember what that means? Forgiven. Not guilty. But also to be seen by God as if I had kept all of God's commands perfectly. God gives blessed assurance to those who humbly draw near to Him in truth. And He seals with an everlasting seal their eternal security in relationship and fellowship with Him through His Holy Spirit. Those given by God the Father and kept by God the Son enjoy communion with God in prayer. What does that mean? It means if you believe in Him, you are never alone. He is as close as your prayer. But He closes His ears forever to those who reject fellowship with Him. Beloved, take your place at the cross of Jesus with His blood and righteousness and offer prayer that is pleasing to God. Amen. Shall we pray? Father, with humble hearts we come before You recognizing that it is such a great privilege for your people to bow before you in prayer with the confidence that you will hear us for Jesus' sake. We know that we do not deserve this privilege but we thank you that Jesus Christ has earned this gift for us and may we never hesitate to use this gift. We pray, Father, that you would continue to speak to us powerfully and effectively through your word, through the reading of your word, through the preaching of your word. That we would respond to you through prayer that is pleasing to you. Father, often our prayers are not pleasing to you. We pray that you would cleanse our prayers and that you would cleanse them by the power of your Holy Spirit. That our Lord Jesus Christ indeed would be faithful to his promise to intercede for us on our behalf. Hear our prayer in this day. Amen.