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Prayer and Worship

Worship is praise to God. Worship is service to God. We want to introduce you to a new life of prayer and worship. Therefore, we will introduce you to a new kind of living. At first, it may appear that we are talking about everything else except praying and worshiping. But as you study topics such as the existence of God, the reality of heaven, and the kingdom of God, you will begin to see the relationship between prayer and worship and life in general. Series written by Morris Williams.

A Family Relationship

“Our Father”

Matthew 6:9

Prayer must begin with an understanding of who we are. Paul tells us in Romans 12:3, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you should.” This is good advice. The “I Am God” Man makes himself king of everything. He doesn’t feel that he needs to pray. However, if we who believe in God and love Him really understand that we are sons of God, it will give us confidence when we pray.

“The Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God’s children, and by the Spirit’s power we cry out to God, ‘Father! my Father!’” (Romans 8:15).

What a wonderful thing it is to be a son of God! What a wonderful thing to belong to a big family in which our brothers and sisters are believers of every race, nation, and tribe! What a wonderful thing to know that our Father loves us, and provides for all our needs!

So, we can come boldly to our Father in prayer. We should, of course, come respectfully and humbly. But there is no need to fear. We know our Father loves us!

THE FATHER OF SONS

Our Father! What meaning there is in those words! God created man. At once a warm pleasant feeling comes as we think about God’s plan that He has had from the beginning of the world.

God is a God of love. Love cannot stand alone. It must be shared with another, or it isn’t real love. That is why God created man in His own image. God made a garden and put man in it. Every evening God and man would walk and talk together. It was wonderful. God wanted to share His love with man. He also wanted to receive love from man. But He wanted man to love Him willingly, so He gave man the power to choose. We call this “free-will.”

Then sin came. Satan tempted Adam and Eve. They believed his lie about God, and disobeyed the Lord’s command. The fellowship was broken. Sin came between God and man. There was no longer a way to share their love. Man was put out of the garden. He was taught to offer blood sacrifices until the Savior would come who would take away the sin of the world.

The main purpose for worship in those days was the need to make sacrifice for sin. Man’s relationship with God was based upon obedience to the Law.

Then the prophets came and told of a Savior who would come. His name would be “God with us” (Immanuel). He would take away sin, then man would once again walk and talk with God. The Savior would make it possible for man to worship God in Spirit and in truth.

So Jesus came. He lived a sinless life on earth. When wicked men crucified Him, He became the “Lamb” of God. He became the “sacrifice” on which the sins of all men were laid. He became sin for us. He paid the penalty of sin which is death. He died, and they laid Him in a grave. But because He had done no sin, death could not hold Him. He rose from the grave. He conquered sin and death. Then, He told His disciples to spread the good news. They were to tell all men that love between God and man could once more be shared. God and man could once again walk together!

Faith That Saves

How can this happen to you? The Bible says that if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved! (Romans 10:9). Praise God! Think of it! If you will believe and call upon Him, you will be saved! But, first you must call.

“Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed. This includes everyone, because there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles; God is the same Lord of all and richly blesses all who call to him. As the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who calls out to the Lord for help will be saved’” (Romans 10:11-13).

Salvation starts with prayer. It comes to those who call out to the Lord for help. It starts when you confess your sins to the Lord and repent. Salvation starts when you believe that Jesus is the Savior, the Son of God who rose from the dead. It starts when you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart. It starts when you pray the prayer of faith! Hallelujah!

Note that Romans 10:12 says, “This includes everyone . . .” God is no respecter of persons. He wants everybody to be saved. He wants everybody to call upon Him. God wants everybody to pray the prayer of faith!

We need to discuss more of God’s plan here. It did not end at the cross or at the resurrection. That was only the first part. You see, Christ’s death and resurrection make it possible for all who believe to become the sons of God. “Some, however, did receive him and believed in him; so he gave them the right to become God’s children” (John 1:12). Sons of God! That is what the plan is all about! God wants children who will love Him and call Him “Father! My Father!”

What God wanted in the beginning, He wants today. He wants to share His love with man. He wants to have fellowship with man. That’s what makes worship so important. God wants sons who worship Him and love Him. Only sons of God can worship God. Only those who believe on Him can pray the prayer of faith. So prayer starts with confessing and believing, and leads to worship of God, our Father.

At the end of this world, all who have believed and are sons of God will be gathered together in heaven. A loud voice will proclaim, “Now God’s home is with mankind! He will live with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God” (Revelation 21:3). That’s it! That is the plan God has had from the beginning. That is the plan that has already started for those who believe. All who call upon Him in faith can begin to fellowship with God right away. They can talk together with Him in prayer and worship. They can share the love of God right on this earth. They don’t have to wait until they get to heaven!

Faith That Keeps

A wonderful thing about God’s love is that it never fails. He loved us when we were yet sinners, but He could not have fellowship with us because we did not love Him. But when we believe that Jesus is God’s Son who died for us and rose again, then we can once more share love with God. We can once more worship Him and talk with Him. Faith makes it possible for us to be sons of God. As long as we keep our faith in Him, nothing can break the love between us.

Of course, if we renounce our faith in Him it will break the fellowship we have with Him. Love must be given willingly. God willingly gives His love to us, but if we cease to believe in Him, our love for Him will be gone. Fellowship with God will be gone.

We are saved by faith and we are kept by faith. If we keep our faith, we keep our salvation. If we forsake our faith, then the basis of our relationship with God is gone. When faith goes, our love for God leaves us and we are sinners and unbelievers once again.

It is by prayer that we call upon God to be saved. It is by prayer that love is restored once again between us and God. And it is by prayer that we keep alive our fellowship with God. Love must be shared, and when we stop sharing our love with God, our relationship with God dies. But by prayer and worship, our faith and love remain strong.

THE FRATERNITY OF SONS

The title of this section is “The Fraternity of Sons.” Fraternity means “brotherliness” or the “the state of being brothers.”

What makes it possible for believers to be brothers? This is possible by having the same “Father,” of course! The day we repented of our sins and confessed Christ to be our Savior, that day we became sons of God and a member of a fraternity of brothers!

All who are sons of one father are brothers. When we say “Our Father” we are confessing that all His children are our brothers. “Those whom God had already chosen he also set apart to become like his Son, so that the Son would be the first among many brothers” (Romans 8:29). Think of it! All true believers are our brothers and sisters. God’s plan from the beginning has been that He might be the Father of “many brothers” among whom Christ is the “Elder Brother.

The Old View Is Gone

God divides men into two groups. Only two! Those who are of His family and those who are not of His family. God does not look upon the world as men do. He does not say, “That is an Indian, that is an African, that is a white man, that is a black man, that is a rich man, that is a poor man, that is an educated man, and that is an uneducated man.” Not at all! This is how the world classifies men. But God does not judge by human standards. He only sees two groups—those who are His children, and those who are not. So He looks at men and says, “That one is my child. That one is also my child. But that one is not my child.” We are the ones, though, who make the choice.

We should look at people as God looks at them. There is no room for prejudice in the family of God. The world divides men into nations, races, tribes, and cultures. We should see only two groups—those who are our brothers and sisters, and those who are not.

The New View Has Come

You say, “How can this be? We can’t all be alike in the family of God.” That is true, and God never intended to remove the things that make people different from each other. What God wants to do is to fill our hearts with His love until the differences make no difference!

The American will continue to be an American. The Indian will remain an Indian. The black will remain black, and the white man white. God does not ask us to change our nationality, race, or tribe. He does make it possible for different kinds of people to live together in love and peace. How can this be? By being a family— a family united by the Holy Spirit and by prayer. It is a true saying that the family that prays together stays together. It is true in a single family of two parents with their children. It is also true of the world-wide family of God which is made up of many races and nations. Prayer changes things!

Many are not sons of God because they refuse to believe in Christ as their Savior. They cannot pray to God and say, “Our Father.” Neither are they brothers of those who believe. When a believer meets a man who is an unbeliever, he cannot call him “brother.” Why? Because he does not have the same Father, and he is not one of the family. Jesus told those who refused to believe in Him, “You are the children of your father, the Devil” (John 8:44).

On the other hand, if a believer meets another believer, even if he is of a different race or nationality, he immediately feels a love for him because he is a brother. He is a member of his own family. For the child of God, the thing that separates him from other men is not race or nationality, but rather the fact that they are unbelievers. He cannot feel “at home” with them.

THE FUNCTION OF SONS

Winning of Men

What do sons of God do while on earth? Why does God keep them here? There is a good reason. The family is not yet complete. God is not willing that any should perish. He wants everybody to be a part of His family! But only those who hear what Jesus did for them can believe. So God has given His sons a job to do. He has told them to go into all the world and tell the good news about Jesus to every creature. What a job! What a responsibility!

But we are not alone in doing the task. Jesus sits at the right hand of God praying for us. When we fail, He is there to hear our cry for help and talk to God about our need. He pleads our case!

The Holy Spirit makes us aware of who we are. He causes us to worship and rejoice because we are sons and daughters of God. This knowledge makes us sure that what God has asked us to do, we can do. Without fear we cry, “Father! My Father!”

The Holy Spirit prays for us when we don’t know how to pray as we ought. When the plan of God is unclear and His will for us seems uncertain, the Holy Spirit prays for us with groans that words cannot express. What a helper He is!

As we pray for men to be saved, the Holy Spirit will often pray through us in an unknown tongue, lifting our burden and helping our prayer. The Holy Spirit will, in known and unknown tongues, encourage us and give us strength to go out with spiritual power to witness and win men to Christ. The Spirit helps us pray. The Spirit helps us worship. To what purpose? To help us get our job done!

Worship of God

What is prayer? It is a relationship with God, sometimes spoken and sometimes unspoken. Since we have mentioned it separately from worship, we can say that prayer has more to do with the needs of people, while worship has more to do with the praise of God.

Words like “repent, ask, seek, knock, cast out, claim, believe, thank, and petition” would describe the idea of prayer. Words like “praise, thanks, meditation, study, honor, glory, and rejoice” would describe worship. These are the activities of the sons of God in prayer and worship. When add the reading of the Word of God to the above, you have two ways in which members of God’s family communicate with Him.

Prayer brings us into the very presence of God. Prayer strengthens our faith to claim the promises of God. Prayer will bring Jesus, the One who pleads our cases, to our side when we have sinned. Prayer will bring us power when we need deliverance. Above all, prayer will keep the love flowing between God and us as we worship Him. We will learn later how to “pray always,” but it is enough to say here that prayer should be as natural as breathing to the child of God.

One more thing before we end this lesson. We don’t have to be afraid when we come before God. Remember, He is “Our Father.” A child may be afraid of strangers, but he does not fear his father. Therefore, when we pray, we are told to come boldly. We are told to come into His presence with singing, and into His courts with praise. Read this for yourself in Psalm 100. We are to be thankful unto Him and bless His name. The presence of God doesn’t sound like a place of fear, does it? It sounds more like a home—like a family gathering. And that is just what God wants it to be, for He is “Our Father” and we are His sons!

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