We Speak to a Personal God

This morning, we begin a new series on something that every Christian does. Every Christian does this one thing, whether it's loudly or softly, publicly or privately, in long paragraphs or in short bullet points. Whether it's done with vigour and urgency, or in humility and with great patience. Every Christian prays. It's the presumption of the Bible that when Jesus comes again, He will find His people praying.

It's the presumption of the Bible that a Christian will naturally have a desire to commune with their God, the God that they've come to know personally. In fact, it is so presumed that a Christian prays that it's a very good test of the heart and of the state of one's faith that if you never pray, the question can rightly be asked of you, are you a genuine believer? So it's not a question of if, but when and how a Christian will pray to God through their faith in Jesus Christ. For that reason, it's just as true that when a pastor gets up to preach a sermon on Sunday morning, and one of the applications that he will find the easiest to tack on to a sermon, because it's an application he knows that will one hundred per cent strike the heart of every listener, it's the application of, are you praying? Do you pray?

Are you praying enough? In the preaching world, the imperative "pray more" is a gimme. It's one of those easy applications that can become a hobby horse for any preacher because you know that it hits the guilt string in the heart. Because we all know deep down, we all believe deep down, we can be doing it a lot more and we can be doing it a lot better. So in order for us to hold that line between cheap gimmes, the easy lobs to make us feel convicted, and also to stay faithful to God's will for the Christian life.

I want us to spend some time over the next month to look at the topic of prayer again, to come at it with fresh and new eyes. In order to do that, we'll be trying to strip it right back and to look at some of the fundamental aspects of why we pray, the reasons for Christians to pray. That's why the series is named "the reasons we pray" and I hope that it will motivate us to pray both more often, but also more deeply and more meaningfully. Today, we begin with the basic notion that when we pray, we address a personal God. That is really what we need to understand when we even dare to bring any requests or any thanksgiving to God.

We need to know that He is a God who is willing to listen to us individually. How can we pray in the first place? Well, we pray as a response to what God has done. Prayer is always a response to what God has done. And firstly, it comes to us because we have Him revealed to us.

Prayer is, like I said, a response. Even when you find yourself asking God for things, when you bring petitions and requests to God, those things can only take place as a response to something God has already done for us in the first place, and that is that He has revealed Himself, His character and His will by which we can come to Him. To call upon God in prayer means you know He acts. To come to God in prayer means that you understand His character, what you are allowed to ask of Him. These things have all, however, been revealed to you before you even begin asking Him.

So how has God revealed Himself to us in a way that invites us to approach Him? Well, we're gonna look at three things this morning, and the reasons why we pray because of Him being a personal God. Firstly, God has revealed Himself through His works. The Bible tells us that the created world itself tells us there is a God. Creation shouts at us His existence.

Psalm 19 begins with the words, "The heavens declare the glory of God." And if anyone has seen a beautiful starry night sky, we can understand. It says, "The sky above proclaims His handiwork." Romans 1:20 tells us that God's invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and His divine being, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. But not only is God revealed through nature, He is revealed through human history.

Psalm 33:10-11 tells us, "The Lord foils the plans of the nations. He thwarts the purposes of the peoples, but the plans of the Lord stand forever. His purposes through all generations." So God is revealed both in creation and everything that we see around us. We realise there is a power behind this, and then we see the weaving of human history that the good generally wins against evil over time, at least. We see through human history an invisible hand.

But the most significant revelation of Himself for us who pray is through God's work of salvation. God is revealed in the deliverance of a people. In Exodus 3:7, we're told that God hears the groan of Israel in Egypt. God remembers, the Bible says, His promise to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And then God acts in delivering them.

When we read "remember" there, it's not that God has forgotten. He's like, "Oh my goodness. There's a people here in Egypt that I've just forgotten about." That remembering is an arousal of urgency to act. God is roused.

He has determined to act with renewed determination. He is moved by their plight even though if you read that verse, Israel technically never cry out to God. They just groan into the sky. Why? They have forgotten who God is during their time in Egypt.

Likewise, going back to Abraham, Abraham is chosen by God and His initiative alone. Seemingly out of the blue, a man called Abram from Ur is called to leave his country, leave his people, and he will receive a blessing of astonishing power that he will know the true and living God. It is clear that Abram was no one special. He was a pagan. He was involved in the family business of building idols to the pagan gods.

And here, Abraham is chosen out of the blue to know the one God. He is no more special, no more holy, no more wise or spiritual than anyone else, but God in grace chooses Abram. We see it in the arrival of Jesus. Mary is not any more special than any other woman, but purely as someone who has been graced by God. The angel comes to Mary and she says, "You have found the favour of God. And you will bear a son whose name will be Jesus, and He will be called the son of the most high, and He will rule over a kingdom that never ends."

Time and time again, God makes Himself known specifically through deliverance. And so whether it is in the creation around us, whether it's the invisible hand of history being steered, or whether it's in the specific instances of deliverance, God has revealed Himself to us in His works. Secondly, God has revealed Himself to us by His name. In classic theology, the general revelation of God through nature and through human history, that work is supplemented. That revelation is supplemented by what theologians call special revelation.

God revealing Himself through His Word, but specifically, what that Word teaches us about His salvation of His people. What we find in that detailed expression of God is His character traits, who God is, and that is often associated by how God reveals His name to people. In Exodus 3, we are told that God is to be known as "I am. I am who I am," which is where the Hebrew name Yahweh comes from. Anywhere in the Old Testament where in our English Bibles we read the capitalised word "Lord," that is where the name Yahweh is used.

We are rather told not to use that name in vain in the Ten Commandments. In the New Testament, we are told to bow down before the name of Jesus. And in fact, the whole world will bow and their tongues will confess the name of Jesus and that He is Lord. Isaiah 42, that we read this morning, shows us the protective fury of God over His own name. "I am the Lord.

That is my name. I will give my name and glory to no other nor share my praise with idols." Now this notion of God's name is found all throughout the Bible. Why? Have you ever asked that question?

Why is this such a big deal, the name of God? Because someone can only truly have a relationship with God by knowing Him through His name. To know someone's name is to have a handle on that whole person. We know that there might be ten thousand John Smiths in the English speaking world, but each John Smith is his own person. And the person who has been given the right to address one particular John Smith personally has a personal access to the unique person, John Smith.

We get the idea of the power of that individual name and person when we think about Twitter. I bet you that you didn't think I was gonna go to Twitter. With Twitter, there will be plenty of John Smiths, but you can only have one unique Twitter handle. There's thousands of John Smiths, but you can only have one john smith ninety two, or the real johnny k smith, or whatever. When someone has that unique Twitter name, they have a handle on the person.

They can write and address their remarks to that person. Something of that is related to God's revelation of His own name to mankind. God has made Himself, in other words, addressable. Knowing His name opens the door to a relationship with Him. He knows our name because He is the infinite omniscient one, but knowing His name gives a mutual knowledge.

Many people love the studies when it comes to it of the names of God in the Bible. The ladies who do K Y B have probably done them in the past. El Roi, the God who sees me. El Holam, God eternal. Yahweh Rapha, the Lord heals, and so on.

These names in the Bible reveal specific traits of God. But knowing the name of God isn't magical. It's simply the gift of understanding the nature of God. In prayer, we therefore can approach God to help us only because we have known from Scripture that He is Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. We only dare to pray to God to help us because we believe that He is El Shaddai, the God Almighty.

He has the power. He has all power to help me. But arguably the most costly name is Yahweh, the God of the promise. Yahweh, the God of the covenant. If I was to choose His most precious name in the Bible, it would be this.

It is the name by which He has sealed the redemption of His people. Yahweh is that name that refers to the "I am" statement of Exodus. "I am who I am" or "I will be who I will be." Yahweh is the God who sovereignly, self-determinately redeems people for Himself and for His name's sake. For this reason, we see God's people being called to glorify the name of the Lord.

Tony will remember this because he preached at my wedding. Our wedding text was from Psalm 34:3, which is an invitation to magnify the Lord. "Come magnify the Lord with me," it says. Psalm 69:30 says the same thing. In fact, the Lord's Prayer, in its first and its most urgent request, is that God will hallow His name.

In the Lord's Prayer, the archetypal prayer for Christians to pray, the most important thing that a Christian should desire, Jesus is saying, is that God will receive glory. To see God being recognised as the God of all wonder and all majesty and magnificence. It is the pinnacle of a heart of devotion to love God for who He is, to see Him be revealed for who He is rather than what He will do for me. To desire God's fame is to have Him recognised throughout the whole universe as God. So calling upon the name of the Lord doesn't mean that you can just utter the name Yahweh or say Father or "Oh my God" and therefore invoke God.

You don't have mystical power over Him when you use that name. That's what new age mystics and ancient cults believe. That's not what God tells us about Himself. God has given His name to those He loves. That is why we are baptised into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, when we come to faith, when we believe, when we are brought into the covenant family.

By giving His name, He tells us He is willing to incline His ear as one who is addressable to the ones who have a handle on Him. A few days ago, my wife Desiree, who calls me by my English name K J, or some cutesy pet version of it, asked me that she has only heard one person consistently call me by my full Afrikaans, or technically Dutch, name, Kuner Jan. Only one person that does that consistently, and that is an aunt in South Africa. Everywhere else, it's K J. She asked me, "What do you feel when you hear that name being used to address you?"

And I said the name suits my aunt. And it suits perhaps my immediate family with whom I grew up. But to everyone else, I am perfectly happy being K J. Now, that is not a reflection of how much I love or don't love those who use my full name. Desi, my dear wife, has only known me as K J and I love her very much.

To change that now would seem strange and foreign, but it is a great example of how a name is used. It is used with permission. There's been an old latent permission for my aunt to use my original name because that is the name by which I have known her and she has known me. In fact, if she was to use K J, she would think it's cheesy, foreign. And that is the same with the use of God's name.

The whole world may know the name of God. Indeed, anyone who picks up a Bible will know many names, but He's the only one who has given permission to us. He's only given that permission to His people. That's why using God's name in vain is so condemned because it's trying to wield power over God when there is no heartfelt relationship, no respect, no love. That is why when we pray, Christians should pray, and I wanna tell this to anyone who's wanting to improve their prayer.

We pray in Jesus' name. That's why we finish it in Jesus' name. We pray and we begin with "Our Father" or "Dear Lord" because God listens when His name is found on the lips of His children. And so we see that second point in speaking to a personal God through prayer. It's only possible because God has broken into our realm from the throne room of heaven to reveal His personhood.

He's given us titles and names and character traits, that He is God, that He is Father, He is Lord, He is Saviour, Redeemer, Provider, He is Adviser, and, yes, even Friend. And then we come to our third and our final point. We can pray to a personal God because He has revealed Himself by His presence. Not only has God shown Himself through those works in creation and history, or by the unveiling of His precious name, there is also a personal depth to His self revelation, which comes to us through His presence. The Bible makes it clear that when we pray, we are speaking to one as though He is sitting there beside us.

God is present in our prayers, or more accurately, we are in His presence. The fundamental understanding of God's actual presence is seen memorably in that story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. If you've ever read it and go, "What is going on here?" The building of this giant temple tower and God's scattering of the people. Well, we see there early man coming together, hatching a plan to build this tower that will reach the one place they think God would be residing, which is the sky.

Because the sky is magnificent and mysterious and powerful. Now, we are led to believe that this group of people are not from the line of Seth, the son of Adam and Eve, who call upon the name of the Lord, the faithful line. These are people that have wandered from God. They don't know God. They have vague notions about God.

So they come together, they pool all their resources, and they begin building this tower. Now, sceptical readers today might think it's a silly and primitive idea to think that God is in the sky, and somehow, if we build something high enough, we can get there. Or they might say, God overreacts completely by scattering this humanity and causing them to be divided along ethnic and language barriers. But if you read closely, you'll understand the sin beneath the sin is this idea that you can somehow force your way into God's presence. And if you can force your way through the door, you have access to God.

You have a right to address God in a way that God hasn't given us. The Bible says the people built this tower not so that they could call upon the name of the Lord, like the faithful line of Seth. In fact, verse 4 in Genesis 11 says, "Let us make a name for ourselves." But the presumption, if you think about it, even this early on in the Bible, is for humanity who have been removed from the Garden of Eden, the presence of God, that they can somehow still have God present with them. The presumption is God is still someone that we can meet and be with.

Meanwhile, God frustrates the plan in Genesis 11 at the Tower of Babel. Significantly, a few chapters later, when we get to Jacob, where that promise has been given to Abraham and his that the blessing is starting to trickle through to Jacob, we get to Jacob and that same term is used of a tower that could reach heaven. The language is used when Jacob has a majestic vision of the glory of God and there is a stairway whose top reaches into heaven. It's the same language. But this time, the vision is given to Jacob, and the stairway has been initiated by God.

And he sees angels descending on earth and going back up, and they are bringing the message of God to earth. In this moment, God reminds Jacob of His grand plan for mankind. He has given a promise to grandfather Abraham that He will start a nation who will become a blessing for the whole world. And He gives that promise here in that vision again to Jacob. And from this part in Genesis, the rest of the Bible shows us that Jacob's name will be changed to Israel.

And the people Israel will come from him, and out of Israel is born Jesus. And then from Jesus, a spiritual Israel is born. Through this collective group, the body of Christ, the church, the souls of people from every nation are saved. Why is the Tower of Babel and the stairway of heaven and Jacob connected? Well, the tower, it was built by man to demand God's allegiance, to bash through His door and to get Him to themselves.

Jacob's stairway shows God as initiating connection with the world. God takes the initiative for the deepest need of humanity. In a very real way, the Bible shows us a God who opens up opportunities of entering into His presence. Isaiah 57:15 says it beautifully. "I dwell in the high and holy place and I dwell also with him who is of contrite and lowly spirit."

Although it's true that the heaven of heavens can't contain Him, as one Kings 8 says, although His glory fills the whole earth, as Jeremiah 23 tells us, God is the one who meets individually with people. He met Moses in the cleft of the rock. He met Elijah in the silent whisper of the wind. He meets Mary and Jesus in the garden after the resurrection. He meets David in the sanctuary of the temple.

God is present and He is everywhere and He allows His children to approach Him at any time. Now, in finishing, we know, of course, the most magnificent display of God's presence was seen in the physical body of Jesus. We are told in John 1:14 that God tabernacled with humanity. He dwelt with us when the Word became flesh. God spoke to us, He ate with us, He cried with us.

He celebrated and laughed with us. People spoke to God as you would speak to a friend. In Jesus, we have seen the heart of God. And we see a heart of empathy and compassion. We see a God who leans in towards His people rather than standing back.

In prayer, we see a personal God who has made Himself known to us. Firstly, through His works, secondly, through His name, and by the revelation that He is present. Thirdly, we pray to a personal God who has spoken to us in many ways. As Hebrews 1 tells us, God has spoken to us in various ways, but He speaks perfectly to us in Jesus Christ, in His work of deliverance, and He will receive a name that is above every name, that in Jesus, we will know the presence of God perfectly displayed. And so it is to Jesus we will now direct our prayer.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank You for Your saving work on our behalf. And we thank You for this basic fundamental truth that we have come to know the living and true God as the one who has come to us. And so all the other revelations make sense of a God who invites Moses to pray to Him, a God who meets with Elijah, a God who meets with David. You're the God we speak to quietly in our heart by Your Spirit being inside of us.

And You're the God we can speak to out loud, energetically, passionately, urgently. As the God who dwells in the heavenly places. We thank You that You have enabled creatures like us to know the Creator of the universe. We thank You that You have given us this right above any other creature. What a lofty and mysterious thought that is.

And then, Lord, not only have You made that possible for humanity at large, but because of Jesus and because of the Holy Spirit that has been poured out, we who profess faith in You have been given Your name by which You will hear us, by which You will draw close to us, by which You will incline Your ear and Your heart. Lord, with such a great vision for prayer, why shouldn't we pray? What could possibly stop us? So we are people of prayer, Lord. Help us to understand more fully today and in the coming weeks just what a powerful privilege it is to commune with our God through prayer.

In Jesus' name, we pray this. Amen.