Prayer as Sweet as Incense

I want to take you back for a few minutes here to something that you've all experienced in your life. If we had a potluck going on today and if our kitchen was right in the back of the rows there, you would kind of know what I'm talking about. But somewhere in your life, you have developed a fondness for certain smells, aromas.

And sometimes you walk in after a busy day at work and if the aroma in the kitchen is exactly your favorite meal, it kind of lifts your whole day, doesn't it? On the other hand, if it's not your favorite meal, it can maybe not ruin a good day, but maybe not make it so well. You probably have fond memories of smells that you were when you were growing up. I remember when I would go to the farm every single morning on the farm, my grandmother would make biscuits. And so if I walk into a bar of evidence today, I kind of smell biscuits and it takes me right back to some pleasant times on the farm. And then when we moved to Florida, we were looking for some homes, we walked into some model homes, and one of them we walked into had a plate of chocolate chip cookies there, and I thought, oh, that's really nice. I mean, everyone likes the smell of chocolate chip cookies, right? We walked into another model home and they were actually baking some chocolate chip cookies, and I thought, well, that's unusual. Why? How did we happen to just luck out two times in a row? And as we were talking to the salesperson there, she goes, oh, well, we've just learned that if people smell something they like, they automatically like the house more and are likely to buy it. And I thought, ah, someone is clever. But we all have certain things that when we smell it, it brings back good memories or makes us feel good. Let's turn back to Revelation 4 and look at something back in Revelation. Of course, in Revelation 4, we have the John who is in vision. Christ is giving him a vision of the throne of God. And in Revelation 4, he talks about what he sees there. And as you recall from a Bible study we did months ago, an Ezekiel one that talks about God's throne. It's a very majestic and awe-inspiring sight. So John is, you know, can't even imagine what he's saying. But he puts it in the words that he can come up with. Let's start in chapter 4 and verse 2. He writes, Immediately I was in the spirit, and behold a throne, said in heaven. And one sat on the throne. And he who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance, and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white robes, and they had crowns of gold on their heads. And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. Before the throne there was a sea of glass like crystal, and in the midst of the throne and around the throne were four living creatures, full of eyes in front and in back.

John was awe-inspired by what he said. What an opportunity, or what something that would change his life and outlook by being in God's throne and seeing what he saw. And as you read down through chapter four, you read that these beings that were there praise God day and night.

Over in chapter five, still in the vision, John, if you recall, will see a scroll, and he wants the scroll to be opened up. They look around and they don't see anyone worthy to open the scroll. But as they look in verse six, they find the Lamb who's worthy to open the scroll. And in verse seven of chapter five, it says, And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a song of praise to God.

Up in the throne room, up there where God is, there were all these things and a golden bowl of incense. You all have smelled incense in your life. Some you like the smell of, others you might not like the smell of. But incense is something that when it's burning, it permeates the room.

And there in God's throne is a golden bowl full of incense. And that incense wouldn't be there if it wasn't pleasing to God. And notice what that incense is. It's the prayers of the saints. It's the prayers of the saints. Those prayers that have been offered by you this week, years ago, patriarchs that lived thousands of years before us, all those prayers to God.

That rose before Him, He keeps a golden bowl of incense.

They're precious to Him. They please Him. And in the throne room, when they praise God, that golden bowl of incense is there, filled with your prayers and the prayers of people who have followed God, walked with God, heated His call, and given their lives to Him and for Him in many cases.

Those prayers are very, very, very precious to God.

In fact, a Psalm 141.

David was a man after God's little heart.

And we know that some of the prayers of David are certainly in that golden bowl that's up there in God's throne room.

Psalm 141.2.

David writes this.

Well, let's start with verse 1.

Lord, I cry out to You, make haste to me. Give ear to my voice when I cry out to You. Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

Let my prayer rise to You as incense. Let it be pleasing to You. Let it be something that when You hear my prayer, it makes You feel good, and that You want to hold it. You want to keep it. You want it there for all eternity, to pull out in those occasions when You're being praised, just like we might pull out an old recipe of someone or pull out a photo album and enjoy some pleasant memories.

Are our prayers like incense to God?

When we pray to Him, does He look at them as incense? Do they rise up to Him, and does He say, that's a sweet-smelling aroma? Keep that prayer in the golden bowl. I'm very pleased with what that prayer is. Do we want our prayers to be as incense? Do we want to please God when we pray?

Let's go back to Exodus 30 for a moment. You can see correlations in the Old Testament often between what they did then, of course, and what we do now in the New Testament times. Well, we have Christ's Holy Spirit after He died and paid for our sins. Back in Exodus 30, we find instructions to Moses on how to set up the tabernacle, later the temple, the place that God would dwell with His people.

As He gave detailed instructions for what would be, He gave them all the framework and told them how to build the utensils. You remember that Moses did everything exactly the way God told them to. In Exodus 30 and verse 34, God gives him some instructions for incense that's going to be in that tabernacle, in the place that he dwells.

In Exodus 30 and verse 34, the Lord said to Moses, Take sweet spices, and he names these three spices, Stacte and Oneicha and Galbanum, and pure frankincense with these sweet spices, there will be equal amounts of each. He gives them a recipe. Take these four things, take equal amounts of each, and you shall make these, He says, in verse 35, of these and incense, a compound according to the art of the perfumer, salted, pure, and holy. Take those elements that I give you to be in that incense. Take them to someone skilled in compounding them together. Make sure that He puts them together so that out of that incense comes a sweet aroma, pleasing to everyone that's around, pleasing most of all to God. Make sure that that compound is pure, and make sure that it's holy. And He goes on and tells them, this will be a very pleasing aroma, and it's going to be in the place that I dwell. But He tells them, you're not to take any of this compound and use it for yourselves. This compound is only for me, only for God, only to be in the tabernacle. David would have been well-acquented with this incense. He wanted to build God a temple. He would have very much known what this incense was, because, as we'll see a little later, this incense was burning all the time in the temple. And when David talked about his prayers, he said, let my prayers be as incense to you, God. Let them be to you as incense. How can our prayers be like God, or to God like incense to Him? Let's look today at how our prayers can become as sweet as incense to God. Let's go back to Matthew 7 and just set a few basics here on where we are. Matthew 7, verse 7, this is, of course, Christ's Sermon on the Mount. He's talking to people for the first time in this sermon, and He gives them some instructions on how to relate to God. Matthew 7, verse 7, He says, Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you'll find. Knock, it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened. Well, God is saying, there's things that you're going to want, and God wants to give it. He says, he who asks will receive, he who seeks, we will find, he who knocks, it will be opened.

But He says, you're going to have to ask. Well, we ask God for things through prayer. We talk to Him, we beseech Him in prayer, and then He goes on to talk about what God is like, what His will is in this whole process. Verse 9, What man is there among you, who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? If he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask Him?

God wants to give us all we ask for. God wants to give us good things.

He knows what we need, but He says, ask for those things.

Back in chapter 6, verse 8, God knows what we need even before we ask Him, but He still wants us to ask Him. He wants us to pray. He wants us to come before Him. He wants us to learn the value of prayer in asking Him for the things we need. Not just physical things, but spiritual things as well. You know, all of you that have children could probably relate to this.

When our kids were growing up, they often didn't know what they needed, but we made sure they had everything they needed and then some. And I'm not talking just about physical things, but also some other things that they might have needed and just discipline and help in other areas to mature. And all too often, we just gave them what they needed. Debbie could see what they needed. She just did it. They never had to worry about food in the refrigerator, never had to worry about socks in the drawer, clean shirts in the closet. It was just all there. They never had to worry about help with homework. We just did it. Not did it for them. I mean, gave them the help they needed. Well, too many cases we might have gone a little too far, but we did it for them. And as they grew up, you know, we would notice, you know, maybe not so much gratitude for some of the things that they had done. Maybe not even some recognition of the things that they really needed. And I could notice that rarely would they ask. They would just sit back and wait for someone to meet the need rather than ask for it. And we began to realize, you know what? There's something really valuable in asking.

Sometimes you just got to sit back and let someone do without until they come forth and ask. Because we develop a lot of character, don't we, when we have to ask. We have to recognize our limitations. We have to recognize we can't do everything for ourselves. We need help from someone. And believe me, we need all the help we can get from God. So God knows what we need. He could just give it all to us. But He doesn't. He says, pray, ask.

I want you to ask. And when you ask, I want to give, I want to give you everything that you need to have eternal life. To be in the Kingdom. To be the kings and priests that He wants us to be in the Kingdom. He wants to give it all, but He wants us to ask. So at the very base of our Christianity is prayer. If we don't pray, there's no way we're going to be in the Kingdom. If we don't pray or know how to pray, there's no way God's going to give us what we need.

And I know that all of us sitting in this room know what the promises of God are, and I know that we're here because we want to be in that Kingdom. We want to be growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ daily. We want to be progressing. We want Him purifying our minds, purifying our lives. We want to be there, and He wants us to be there. If we want that, prayer has to be at the very base of it.

We simply have to pray. And when we pray, we want that prayer to be a sweet incense to God. Now, just for a few minutes, let's do a few more basics. In John 14, verse 14, you don't have to turn there, but Christ is saying, if you ask anything in my name, I will give it. And so when we pray, we know that we pray our prayers in the name of Jesus Christ.

We also know that there's some framework around prayers that we can look at a little bit. Turn with me over to Psalms again. This time, Psalm 5. Go back and look at what David says in another aspect of prayer. Before we get into the ingredients of the inset, let's just do some of the framework, just like I would have had Moses prepare the framework and the utensils that was going to be used when the incense was burned. In Psalm 5, verse 2, David tells us some of how he prayed. Psalm 5, verse 2 says, Give heed to the voice of my cry, my king and my God, for to you I will pray.

My voice you'll hear in the morning, O Lord. In the morning I will direct it to you, and I will look up. How did David start his day? David started his day with prayer. In the morning he prayed. In Psalm 88, verse 13, he says the same thing. In the morning I'll pray to you. Now, there are certain rituals we all go through every morning. If I don't have a cup of coffee in the morning on weekdays, I'm getting off of the weekends for coffee. If I don't have a cup of coffee on the weekdays, my day just doesn't go as well as it should.

I don't know what it is, but it's just not a good day without a cup of coffee in the morning. And probably you have something in the morning you do as well. But you know we need to get to the point that if we don't pray in the morning, it's not a good day.

That if we leave the house, if we begin our workday, and we haven't taken the time to pray to God and get Him involved in our life, to set the standard for the day, boy, we've missed out on a lot. We may get through the day, but it's not going to be as good as it was, as it could have been if we had just started the day with prayer, to take the time and make the time to do that.

David did. Daniel did. He jot down Daniel 6, verse 10. It says, he prayed to God three times, was his custom from his early days. Three times a day, he knelt down beside the window. Morning, noon, and night, and prayed to God. Now, it doesn't mean that we only pray in the morning.

Turn with me back to Exodus 30. Again, let's look a little more at the incense we just talked about. In Exodus 30, verse 7, as God is instructing Moses, he says in verse 7, Aaron shall burn on its sweet incense on the altar every morning. Every morning.

Not three days a week, two days a week, five days a week. He's going to burn incense every morning when he tends to lamps. He'll burn incense on it. David wanted his prayer to be his incense.

We want our prayers to be his incense. And when Aaron lights the lamps, it says in verse 8, and when Aaron lights the lamps at twilight, he'll burn incense on it, a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations. He's going to light it in the morning, and then he's going to light it at the end of the day.

He's going to have that incense burning all the time, a constant aroma pleasing to God. Paul says in the New Testament a few times, pray without ceasing, without ceasing in 1 Thessalonians 5. Does that mean he wants us on our knees, all waking hours? No. But he wants the thought of God, that God is at an instant with us at any time during the day.

Any time during the day, we're that close to God. And when we start with our prayer in the morning, when we get that day started that way, and invite God into everything we do, that it will please Him, please our employers, be of benefit to our families and everyone else we come in contact with, God is pleased with that.

Turn with me back to Nehemiah 2. Nehemiah 2, we find an example here that is interesting. And Nehemiah, of course, was the cupbearer for the king, and he wanted to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild after the people had been taken captive. And of course, he would have to ask for time off to be able to do that. And he was a little bit nervous about what he was going to do.

He prayed to God. God led him to do that. And in chapter 2, we find something that we can apply into our lives today. Let's begin in chapter 2 of Nehemiah. The king said to me, Why is your face sad? You're not sick. This is nothing but sorrow of heart. Well, Nehemiah's job was to be upbeat before the king.

No one wanted a sour cupbearer before them, so he became afraid. I became dreadfully afraid that the king would see this attitude in me. And I said to the king, May the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad? When the city, the place of my father's tombs, lies waste, and his gates are burned with fire. And the king said to me, What do you want? What do you request? And notice what the first next line says. So I prayed to the God of heaven. This is exactly what Nehemiah wanted to have happen. He wanted to request the king to go back.

And there was this opportunity. God led the king to ask the right question. But before Nehemiah ventured in, he prayed to the God of heaven. He stopped and asked God, Give me the right words. Give me the right favor. As we go through our days, there's many times that we can stop and realize, We need God involved in this prospect. We need God involved in this conversation. We need God involved in this meaning. I need God to give me favor in these people's eyes. Or to let me know what to say at that time. It just takes an instant. Ask God.

Be that close to him that when the time comes, you can pray as Nehemiah did. And then the right words came out of his mouth in verse 5, and his wish was granted. Praying in the morning, praying throughout the day, knowing that God is your God and who you are, and keeping in contact with him mentally, going about your work, and realizing he's there at every instance, at every instant that you need him, is a tremendous, tremendous tool.

And God is pleased when he hears those prayers come up, and we remember to get him involved in those situations that come up in our lives.

Let's look at another part of the framework of a prayer back in Psalm 95.

As you're turning there, we know that Christ taught us that we pray in a private place. We don't pray where the whole world can see us, but we pray in a private place between him and them, but here or between him and us. In Psalm 95, David gives us another parameter. 95 and verse 6 says, O come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Let us kneel down to him, David says.

You know, kneeling is something that's reserved for people of great import. You've seen movies of people bowing to kings, kneeling down on one knee to kings. Sometimes you see pictures from England where there's a queen, and people when they approach her will kneel down on one knee. It's not something we do to each other. It's not something we do in this country at all. But when people kneel, it shows great respect, great reverence for their office. They bow down on one knee, certainly if we're going to come before the God of the universe, we can find time if our health and if our knees will allow us to kneel down before God. David said, let's kneel down before him. If you can, kneeling is another one of those things that can put us in the right frame of mind as we enter into a prayer. As we kneel, there's something about kneeling that tells our mind we're here talking to someone so vastly more important to us that words can't then us than words can even describe. It's healthy to kneel down before God. Now, if we pray three, four, five, or more times a day, we don't have to kneel every single time we pray. You know that some of maybe your closest prayers have been when you've been walking in the woods or walking along the ocean. And it's just you and God and you have time as you're walking to do that. But as we begin our days in the morning, it might be a healthy thing to build into the framework that David says here to kneel at least once a day and have that habit of showing God through our physical stance that we honor Him, respect Him, and that we have great, great, great awe of Him. You know, in Christ, back in Luke 22, when He went out and prayed to God that the cup would pass from Him as He was faced with the time of the crucifixion and His arrest, He knelt down, it says. Here was the Son of God kneeling down before God. So, we've got a couple things that we can look at just as we frame prayer. Now let's look at some of the ingredients of the incense. Back in Exodus, we read the things that God told them to put in the incense. Let's look at some ingredients that we can have in our prayers if we want them to rise before God as a pleasing aroma to Him. For the first one, let's turn back to 2 Kings. 2 Kings 21.

We have the story of King Manasseh. Not to be confused with one of Joseph's sons, King Manasseh was the son of Hezekiah, who was a good son of God. But King Manasseh was anything but a good king. Let's pick up his story in chapter 21 of 2 Kings in verse 2. He, Manasseh, did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.

Where Hezekiah, his father, tore down high places and altars, Manasseh rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah had destroyed. He raised up altars for Baal, made a wooden image as Ahab king of Israel had done, and he worshipped all the hosts of heaven and served them. He built altars in the house of the Lord, which the Lord had said in Jerusalem, I'll put my name. And He built altars for all the hosts of heaven and the two courts of the house of the Lord.

And He made His sons, verse 6, pass through the fire. He practiced soothsay, used witchcraft, consulted spiritists and medians. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger. This was not a good king. God was not at all pleased, and as it says, He was so provoked to anger with Mazzasa that in verse 10, He said this about Him.

The Lord spoke by His servant the prophet, saying, Because Manasseh, king of Judah, has done these abominations, He's done more wickedly than all the Amorites who were before Him, and has made Judah sin with His idols. Therefore, thus says God, I am bringing such calamity on Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle.

And God did do that. God did send them into captivity. What happened during Manasseh's reign was absolutely despicable. He turned against God, it seems, with all his heart and all his soul and all his mind. Certainly, someone like Manasseh, God wasn't going to listen to anything He had to say. Let's go over to 2 Chronicles and see another account of King Manasseh. 2 Chronicles 33, it verifies what we read in 2 Kings 21, but it talks about what happens after Manasseh. Some of the God's wrath comes upon him. In chapter 33 of 2 Chronicles 10, it says, The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they wouldn't listen.

They just wouldn't have anything to do with him. So the Lord brought upon them the captains of the army of the kings of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze fetters, and carried him off to Babylon. Now, when Manasseh was in affliction, now that it hurt, now that he saw what the results of his way were, now that he was in affliction, he implored the Lord as God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And Manasseh, of all people, Manasseh prayed to him, and God received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom.

And then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. What did Manasseh do? To get the ear of God? He humbled himself. He humbled himself. He was in dire straits. What had happened to him hurt. And at that point, he realized his only way out was God, and he humbled himself. Now, if God would hear the prayers of someone like Manasseh, because Manasseh humbled himself, you think that's important to him? To have as one of the ingredients in a prayer that will be as sweet as incense? In our prayers, we have to have a humble attitude. We have to be subservient to God. We cannot come before him thinking we have anything to crow about.

We can't become before him thinking that we can do anything without him. Even Jesus Christ said of my own self, I can do nothing. If Jesus Christ could say that, how much more should we come before God and say of our own selves, we can do absolutely nothing. We need you to accomplish everything in life, physical, mental, and spiritual.

A key ingredient in any prayer that's going to rise as incense before God has to be humility. And before you kneel down to pray, make sure you're in a humble attitude. Think about what God has done. Think about where you'd be if he turned his back on you and didn't provide everything that we take for granted in our lives. You can get, you can put yourself into a humble attitude. You can ask God to give you a humble attitude.

Have that when you pray. Turn back to chapter 7 of the same book. Chapter 7, verse 14 of 2 Chronicles. As the temple that Solomon built for God is being dedicated, there's a long prayer that comes, and in verse 14, God says, and he says this many times during this prayer, If my people who are called by my name, that's you and me, remember? We've taken God's name.

We assemble together today in his name. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I'll hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and heal their land.

If you do that, God says, if you have that ingredient in the incense, it'll be pleasing to me. In a few months, we'll be taking Passover. We'll take of the bread and the wine, but what do we do before we take of the bread and the wine? We wash feet, a symbol of our humility before God. As we pray, part or one key ingredient in a prayer that will please God is coming before him in humility. Let's look at another ingredient back in Philippians 4. Philippians 4. In verse 6, Paul writes, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.

In every prayer, he says, with thanksgiving, make sure part of the compound that's rising up before God has in it a healthy dose of thanksgiving, a healthy dose of gratitude. Easier to pray, hallowed be thy name, when humility and gratitude is part of the ingredients of the prayer that we're sending up to God. And gratitude is another one. We take a lot of things for granted. But it's easy to put yourself in a grateful attitude. You can sit down and list, and we can all sit down and list and list to run from here to the end of this building, of all the physical things we have to be grateful for. Because in this country, no matter how bad we have it, we have it pretty good.

But if we add to that list all the spiritual gifts that we've been given, every single one of us in this room, the things we know, the comfort that gives us, the calm that gives us, the purpose that gives us as we wake up every morning, boy, it's easy to be grateful if we think about those things before we go into pray to God, that he has given us not only what we need now, but he's given us eternity if we just reach out and take it and do it on the terms that he set for us.

It's there! I want to give you everything he says. Pray, ask for it, as part of the ingredients of the prayer, make sure there's a healthy dose of gratitude, even up in heaven. Remember we read the throne room up there? The 24 elders. What do they do? They thank God. It says day and night, not that the words are going on day and night, but they're in a constant state of gratitude toward God. Constantly in awe of him, constantly in worship of him, always in gratitude. Let that be part of your life. It has to be part of the prayer that we offer up. If it's ever going to be in that golden bowl of incense that God brings out, that pleases him when he thinks back on it. Let's go back to John and look at another ingredient of a prayer that's as sweet as incense, John 15. John 15, verse 16. Of course, this is the time when Christ is talking to his disciples right before the time of his arrest. He's giving them a lot of instructions. Instructions to them, instructions to us as well, as these words have been preserved for us. John 15, verse 16. Let's begin in verse 15. No longer, he says, do I call you servants, for a servant doesn't know what his master is doing. We know what God's doing. He's made that known to us. We don't know the details, but we understand what his plan is. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant doesn't know what his master is doing. But I've called you friends, for all things that I heard from my father I've made and made to you. You didn't choose me. And none of us chose. God chose us. And we responded to the call. You didn't choose me. I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.

When God called us, and we responded to the call, when we repented, when we were baptized, when the Holy Spirit was put in us, that wasn't the end of the things we had to do. He called all of us to bear fruit. Remember the parable of the talents. There was one who just hid his talent and just stayed exactly the same as it was when he was called. But another increased the talents by doubling them. Another one by ten times. And God gave him authority over cities. God called us that we would bear fruit.

And he says, not only bear fruit, but that your fruit should remain. It remains. Not that we build it and then slough off and let it all disappear. Your fruit should remain and be increasing every day until the day you physically die.

I called you that you bear fruit and that your fruit remain. And then notice the last phrase. That whatever you ask, the Father in my name, he may give you.

If you bear fruit, if that fruit remains, if you keep walking the walk and talking the talk, if you keep following the example of Jesus Christ, if you keep growing in grace and knowledge, He says, whatever you ask, the Father in my name, he may give you.

God is looking for an obedient, submissive heart. An obedient and submissive attitude as part of the recipe for a prayer that's as sweet as incense to Him.

We've all talked about, you very well know, the examples in the Bible of patriarchs who just did what God asked them to do.

They didn't quibble about it. They didn't try to reason with them. They didn't ignore it. If He said, do it, they did it. If He said, go here, they went.

How about us? If God shows us that something in our life is wrong, even though it may be very valuable to us or very important to us, do we say, that's it? It's out of my life.

Or do we think about it? Do we reason around it? Do we think, it can't be that important to God, I'm doing everything else right.

Are we willing to just put it out? If God shows us, put it out.

If we are, that's an attitude that's pleasing to Him. Many times, you know, in your experience in prayer, thoughts will come into your mind as God lets you know some things about yourself.

And sometimes it'll become apparent, there's something that I didn't even realize was a problem that is.

So we reason that away and think, that was just my mind running away with myself.

Or do we go back and say, it has to disappear. And God, thank You for letting me know how I'm separate from You, and then putting it away and coming before Him ready for Him to change us, ready for Him to educate us.

The same Apostle John wrote about the same thing back in 1 John. 1 John 3.

1 John 3.

And verse 22. He writes, whatever we ask, whatever we ask, we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. When our children do good things in our sight, don't we want to give them everything that they possibly want?

Aren't we very pleased when we see them conforming, trying hard to develop character, trying hard to put something out of their lives that has irritated us?

Now, we want to give them. God sees the same things as us. He knows. Jesus Christ was here. He was tempted. At all points like is us. He knows what this life is like, and He knows it's a struggle.

He wants to give us life. He wants to give us strength. He wants to give us things, and He says, He'll give them. He'll give those things to us because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.

If we have a yielded and obedient attitude, if that's part of the ingredients of the prayer that we offer up to God, He'll be pleased.

And when we say the words, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, there'll be more than just words we're uttering. He'll be seeing that in our heart. He'll be seeing that in our mind. He'll be seeing that in our soul. And that is very pleasing to Him.

Let's go back to John. Again, John 9 this time. John 9 and verse 31. John 9 and verse 31 says, Now we know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, he hears him.

God doesn't hear sinners. Isaiah 59 and verse 1 and 2 says sin separates us. It's a block between us and God.

If we have an attitude of sin, if there's things that we're not repenting of that we're just holding back, our prayers aren't going to rise above the ceiling of the room that we're in.

But if we want them to ascend to heaven, then we will have a repentant attitude. We need an obedient and submissive attitude. We also need a repentant attitude because all of us have things that we have to repent of and that we'll continue to learn that we need to repent of all the days of our lives. God's looking to see how we respond to that, and he's looking to forgive us as well.

Let's go back again to 1 John 1 verse 9. 1 John 1 verse 9 says, He who says he's in the late, 1 John 1 verse 9. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Sometimes our prayer, that isn't the same prayer that we pray every day, is a prayer of repentance because we've recognized that we have departed from God somewhere, something between us and him. And sometimes we just feel distant from God and we may not even know why. At those times we pray and ask Him, what is between you and me? Show me what it is between you and me.

God says if we draw near to Him, He'll draw near to us. He doesn't move, we move.

Remember what David said back in Psalm 139? He said, Search my heart, O God. Show me if there's any wicked way in me. Show it. Reveal it.

Because David didn't want anything between him and God. He wanted it all gone. He wanted to be like His Creator. And He wanted God to purify Him.

You and I are here with the real intent. And looking forward to His Kingdom, we're going to want the same thing.

We don't want any of the elements that aren't going to be in His Kingdom. We want God to show us what those are so that we can eliminate those from our lives.

Turn back a couple chapters there in 1 John, 1 John 3.

God wants from us the same thing that we want from our children.

When they do wrong, we know they're not going to be perfect all their lives. But boy, it warms our heart, doesn't it?

When they come before us and they admit that they've done something wrong.

Doesn't happen often enough, I would say. I'm glad my kids aren't with me today. They were in Jacksonville, but I didn't say that up there.

But it warms our heart when they apologize. It warms their heart when they admit that they've done something wrong.

And kind of the anger disappears. God's the same way. He doesn't want us to be miserable. He doesn't want us to be in misery and pain.

But He will bring upon us the end results of our ways.

But when we repent before Him, we read in 1 John 1, He's quick to forgive.

In 1 John 3, verse 2, John writes, John writes, Through this life process that we go through, we'll become like Him, God ever purifying, ever taking away the flaws, the sins, the weaknesses. And everyone, it says in verse 3, who has this open Him, purifies Himself, just as He is pure.

How do we purify ourselves? We confess our sins to God.

We ask Him to show us the sins, and when He shows them, we repent. We turn from those ways toward His ways. We don't continue in that way. And over the course of a lifetime, He creates blamelessness in us.

That's what God wants. And if we're here with the right purpose, that's what we want to.

We want to become like Him. We want His purity to become, or we want to become like Him and develop over a course of a lifetime, walking with His Holy Spirit.

The purity that He wants to develop in us.

To do that, we have to have a repentant attitude, a humble attitude, a grateful attitude, an obedient and submissive attitude.

All those things that add up. Let's look up at another ingredient.

We're right here in 1 John. Let's look at chapter 5 of 1 John. Chapter 5 and verse 14.

This is the confidence that we have in Him. That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

You know what John is saying? Have faith. Believe in Him. Have the confidence that when you pray, God is listening, God is hearing, and that if we're walking the walk, He's paying attention.

And that He will answer in His time.

In Hebrews 11, verse 6, it says, it's impossible to please God without faith.

So faith isn't an ingredient in our compound of prayer. That's as sweet as incense.

It's not going to be that pleasing to God. It's not going to go very far.

We have to pray the prayer of faith.

One more. Let's go back to Luke 11.

Luke 11. We have the same. We have Luke's account of the model prayer that Jesus Christ gave His disciples when they asked Him.

And it records it here in Luke 11, verse 1. The disciples said, teach us how to pray. Teach us.

They knew that that was a foundational part of their Christianity.

Teach us to pray.

Verse 2, so Christ said to them, when you pray, say, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.

And don't lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

And then Matthew's account says, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Now, you've all heard prayers, or you've all heard sermons on that prayer.

Not a prayer that we pray. It's a type, kind of a guideline of how we pray.

And it's right and appropriate to pray for the things that we need.

God says, pray for your daily bread. Be grateful for it, but pray for the daily physical bread and the daily spiritual bread that we receive.

Pray for your sins to be forgiven. Pray for the things that you have need of. Pray for the Holy Spirit.

It says here in the same chapter of Luke 11, God will give you the things that you need.

And we all do that when we pray. We're very good at asking God for the things we need, and sometimes a whole lot more than that.

But I wonder if, when our prayers go to heaven, if we use this model prayer, they maybe sound more like this.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give me, day by day, my daily bread. Forgive me my sins, as I forgive everyone who is indebted to me.

And don't lead me into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

If that's what God hears, a prayer is not going to be real pleasing to him. He'll grant what you need, but it's probably not going to be one of those prayers that are in that golden bowl of insides.

Because there's something else that's very important to God that's in a prayer that's pleasing to him.

And he says it here in this verse. He says, give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us from the evil one. You know, when Christ was on earth, he wasn't concerned just about himself. He was more concerned about everyone living then, everyone living now, you, me, and every man, woman, and child than he was about himself.

When he was praying to God, he wasn't praying just for him. He was praying for you and me and people we don't even know.

And when we pray, he wants us praying for each other. He wants us to be aware of what others' needs are, and he wants us to have that love developing in us.

That we're concerned and just as concerned about your sickness as my sickness. Your employment is my employment. Your problems and relationship problems as much as my relationship problems.

A key ingredient, maybe the most important ingredient of all is that God sees love for one another in those prayers.

In John 13, 35, he says what? By this you'll know. By this they'll know you're my disciples. If you have love for one another, Christ can see if we have love for one another. All he has to do is listen to our prayers.

Do we pray for other people's problems? Do we pray with fervency and energy for them?

When Christ was on earth, he was an intercessor. You know what an intercessor is? He's one who is the mediator between someone and someone else.

Let me read a definition here, if I can put my hands on it quickly.

An intercessor is one who takes the place of another or pleads another's case.

One Bible dictionary finds intercession as holy, believing, persevering prayer whereby someone pleads with God on behalf of another or others who need God's intervention.

So every week, unfortunately, it seems like every week, we have a prayer request. Someone who's ill. Someone who needs our prayers.

Every week, we might find someone who's in this economy lost their job or is an underemployed or has other problems.

And you may know that and you may hear that about someone in the congregation. What do we do with it?

Christ interceded for us. I won't turn to Romans 8.34. You can write that down in your notes and look at it later.

In Hebrews 7.25, He is our intercessor. We pray in His name. He knows what we go through and He takes it to God.

God grants the request.

God wants us to be intercessors for each other. He put us all in a body here so that we pray with one another or pray for one another, so that we know one another, so that we're growing together.

If you have a problem, it's my problem. Remember, that's what Galatians, Paul wrote in Galatians, bear one another's burdens.

Be happy when they're happy, be happy or sad when someone's sad.

Pray for one another.

There's some tremendous examples of intercessory prayer in the Bible.

Let's look for a few moments at Daniel 9.

Numbers 14 would be another good example of an intercessory prayer.

In Daniel 9, you'll remember that Daniel is one of the few people in the Bible that God never has anything negative to say about.

It doesn't mean that Daniel never sinned. Of course, he sinned. He was human like us.

But through living in Babylon, and living in a society that was against God, he always stayed close to God, and I saw him through it.

So in Daniel 9, Daniel is praying to God. Let's pick it up in verse 4 of Daniel 9.

Daniel says, I pray to the Lord my God, and made confession and said, O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant and mercy with those who love him.

And with those who keep his commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity.

We've done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from your precepts and your judgments.

Neither have we heeded your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and the people of life.

O Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us, shame and face.

And he goes on and on. Daniel wasn't guilty of those things, but his people were.

He knew why they were in captivity, and he was praying to God on their behalf.

The part of the people you put in the end, we have sinned.

We have sinned. We have let you down.

We're all part of the body of Christ.

We're all part of the church that bears his name.

God wants us to know and identify with one another.

If one member is weak, we rush for their help and help them encourage them, because we all want each other to make it to the kingdom.

We're not in it just to see if we get there. We want each other to get there.

So whatever help we can give, physically and certainly by prayer, as God is looking at those prayers, we give it. We go to God and we ask Him, help us as a people please you.

Help us as a people get rid of the sins and the attitudes that aren't pleasing to you.

Get rid of them and make us look like you so that you can return and we can be with you for eternity.

He wants to see the love. He wants to see that, and that is a very pleasing aroma in his sight.

Let's turn back to Job. Job was a man who had severe trials in his life. He learned a lot as he went through trials, thought that maybe he was unjustly...

I don't know when he would say that. He had a lot of trials in his life, and God had to teach him a lot about himself through the time that he was there.

In Job 42, the end of the book, we find a Job who is now humble, a Job who is now recognized self-righteousness and put that out of his life.

Job who is grateful, a Job who has a subservient, obedient attitude, a Job who has a repentant attitude.

God sees it and God likes it. He loves what he sees.

Job's friends are another case out there. God is not too pleased with them. Look what happens here in 1st chapter 42.

It says, God is talking to the friends of seven bulls and seven rams. Go to my servant Job and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering, and my servant Job will pray for you.

You do this, but Job is going to pray for you. Job is going to ask me to forgive you.

For I will accept him. He's got the right attitude. I've heard his prayer. It's the proper compound. It's coming up before me as sweet as incense, and I want to grant what he wants.

I will accept him lest I deal with you according to your folly, because what you've spoken against me isn't right.

Job did it. Job might have looked at those guys and said, you know what? You put me through a really hard time here. There was no empathy. You weren't there. You were accusing me of all these other things. Job prayed for them. He got it. He didn't want them to be cast aside.

Verse 10 says, the Lord, the Lord restored Job's losses. Remember, he lost all his family, all his livelihood. The Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends.

When he showed God, I loved them, despite what they did to me. God said, you've got the right attitude.

I accept your prayer. It's in this golden bowl that's full of incense, which is the prayers of the saints. It's there.

And God restored his losses.

One more scripture. James 4.

We have prayer requests that go out each week. Even from the home office, we get prayer requests from around the world. I know many of those received those. Many of you received those. On Friday nights, as Mr. J. Fitz sends those out.

And, of course, you know the verse in James 5 that says, If any among you is sick, let them call on the elders and let them pray over them. Well, that prayer is an intercessory prayer. It's a command of God that we intercede on their behalf. And I would hope all of us take that very, very seriously. Over here in James 4, though, as he's talking about wars and fights, he begins this chapter.

He says this in verse 2, You lust and you don't have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight in war, yet you don't have because you don't ask. We know that we have to come before God and ask. Then he says in verse 3, You ask and you don't receive because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

Your prayer is such that it benefits you. God knows what's in our hearts. God knows the aromas that are coming up. He's got a very sensitive nose and he can detest what's very pleasing. And what is maybe just a little bit rancid.

And when he hears a prayer that's very self-serving, very all about me, it's not pleasing to him. You ask and don't receive, he says, because you ask amiss. And he's not talking just about you or just about me. He's talking about all of us. Just let me ask a question. I'm not going to answer it. Just something for you to think about. Every once in a while I'll hear people say, you know, why isn't it that God isn't answering prayers? Why do things go on and on and on? And it just doesn't seem like God's hearing.

Could it be that we, his people, are asking amiss? That we aren't asking with all the proper compounds, or all the proper compounds of all those ingredients that we need to have in our prayer if God's going to listen?

As we go back, think about your prayer. Think about what you're offering up to God. Think about what he wants from us, and think about that incense back in Exodus 30 that had to be prepared exactly the way he wanted it to be prepared, and it was there day and night.

You know, Aaron was instructed, light that incense. Burn it. Light it at morning. Light it at twilight. Keep it burning all the time. You have in you what lights that incense. You have the fire of the Holy Spirit. That will ignite those prayers. Let it permeate your mind. Let God guide you to the proper attitude so that when you pray, you're praying the way he wants you to. And when you do, and when we do, and when all his people do, he may just answer our prayers.

He may just do it. Now, he does things in his own time, and I'm not making any pronouncements here. God does things and teaches us a lot of patience. But maybe we all need to learn to pray. Pray. Foundational principle of Christianity. And when we do, it will rise before God as sweet incense.