Means of Grace: Prayer
Renewing Your Mind
Ligonier Ministries
4.8 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 30 July 2024
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Do you ever find it difficult to pray? You're not alone--and you're not without help. Today, Sinclair Ferguson identifies the attitude and approach that Jesus has laid out for His people in prayer.
Get 'The Basics of the Christian Life' DVD and Digital Study Guide with Sinclair Ferguson for Your Gift of Any Amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3490/the-basics-of-the-christian-life
Meet Today's Teacher:
Sinclair Ferguson is a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow, vice-chairman of Ligonier Ministries, and Chancellor's Professor of Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary. He is featured teacher for several Ligonier teaching series, including Union with Christ. He is author of many books, including The Whole Christ, Maturity, and Devoted to God's Church. Dr. Ferguson is also host of the podcast Things Unseen.
Meet the Host:
Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children.
Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | That's greatest problem in the West. We don't realize how weak we really are and duffer we pray so little. |
| 0:07.2 | And that's my problem as a Christian. I think I can do it and that makes me prayerless. |
| 0:12.4 | And it's only when I realize how dependent I am on |
| 0:15.6 | him that I'll learn to pray. |
| 0:21.2 | Prayer can be hard, but why is it difficult? It can be challenging for a number of reasons. |
| 0:30.0 | It could be, as Sinclair Ferguson just mentioned, that we forget how weak we truly are and so we neglect prayer |
| 0:37.4 | We may have our priorities upside down, but perhaps because of sin we don't want to approach God. |
| 0:44.0 | Well the disciples knew that they needed to grow in prayer |
| 0:48.0 | and they asked Jesus to teach them to pray. |
| 0:50.0 | And that's what we'll consider on this Tuesday edition of renewing your mind. |
| 0:56.2 | In a time when many of us can't go two minutes without reaching for a device, where boredom is almost impossible due to over-stimulation. It's vital that we return |
| 1:07.0 | to prayer and seek to grow in our prayerfulness, putting away our devices and other |
| 1:12.2 | distractions and coming before our heavenly father. |
| 1:16.0 | Here's Sinclair Ferguson with an overview of prayer and the answer Jesus gave |
| 1:21.0 | when his disciples asked him to teach them to pray. |
| 1:24.1 | We're talking at this stage in our studies about what we sometimes refer to as |
| 1:32.0 | the means of grace. |
| 1:34.0 | And we've already seen that we shouldn't think of the means of grace |
| 1:38.0 | as instruments we use in order to get grace. |
| 1:42.0 | But privileges God has given to us in his grace so that we |
| 1:47.1 | may know him better and indeed serve him well. We thought in the last study about the Bible and now we're coming to the subject of prayer |
| 1:58.5 | Remember many years ago I think it must be 40 years ago now at the privilege of being visited by the senior editor of a major Christian publishing company. |
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