This morning’s sermon is about prayer.
And the chances are that makes your heart sink.
If you’re anything like me, you already know that Christians are supposed to pray. You don’t need a Bible passage that commands us to pray. You don’t need a sermon that tells you to pray. You know that. We know that prayer is important. And yet there’s this gulf between what we know and what we do, so Bible passages and sermons on prayer just make us feel guilty.
Well the writer of Hebrews doesn’t want his readers to feel guilty that they don’t pray. He wants them to pray. This verse is not a command to pray, it’s an encouragement to do it – and when it comes to praying we all need a little encouragement.
Maybe, though, some of us here are starting in a different place. Maybe you don’t feel guilty over your prayerlessness because approaching God in prayer is not something you’d ever have considered doing. Well in that case, this little verse is here to encourage you as well. You can.
This writer wants to give us two encouragements as we think about prayer.
1. You are clean
First, he says: You are clean. You are clean.
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
He’s picking up on the verses we thought about last time. None of us are clean before God. We all sin. But Jesus died to open the way into God’s presence. The blood of Jesus, God’s son, opens the way.
The writer now spells out what Jesus’ blood does to us. The reason that Jesus’ death opens the way into God’s presence is because Jesus’ death makes us clean. The problem wasn’t with God. The problem was with me. I do things that make me unclean. I cannot enter God’s presence unless I’ve been washed clean. That’s what Jesus’ death does for me.
The language in this verse is language from the Old Testament. On lots of occasions, the people had to wash with water or be sprinkled with the blood of an animal. But the Old Testament recognised that these things were just symbols. They could only make us clean on the outside. So the Old Testament prophets looked for the day when God would make us clean in our hearts, not just on the outside.
Just before the paragraph of Hebrews that we’re looking at, he’s concluded an extended discussion of Jeremiah 31. Just glance down at verse 16 of this chapter. Here’s what Jeremiah looked for that Jesus has now done: ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,’ then he adds, ‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’
One day, says Jeremiah, God will forgive our sins so completely that he’ll forget them entirely. That will enable him to give us new hearts.
The language of being sprinkled with pure water comes from Ezekiel chapter 36 which has the same promise. Total forgiveness, leading to clean, new hearts.
Which means we are clean. Clean through and through. Including our consciences. That nagging doubt that God can’t accept us because of some unworthiness in us. The death of Jesus has washed us clean, purged our hearts, wiped our consciences.
And nothing stops us praying more than the feeling that we’re a bit dirty.
From time to time, a visitor comes to one of our services, and somehow they feel under-dressed. It happened just the other week, in fact – a couple out for a walk decided to come to church. Very quickly people made them feel at home, but there was that initial self-consciousness. We’re not quite dressed the part.
And we easily feel like that with God as we come to pray. Not quite dressed the part. What about that mistake that I made ten years ago? I didn’t pray much last month, so God won’t want me. You don’t know half the things I’ve done, if I came to one of your services I’d be struck by lightning.
And so our prayers never make it off the starting blocks.
Which is why the writer wants to underline. You are clean. You are clean.
2. You can be sure
Here’s the second encouragement in this verse: You can be sure. You can be sure.
You can be sure that God will hear you.
Look at verse 22 again: Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.
The true heart is one that doesn’t waver. Doesn’t want to draw near to God one minute then run away the next. One that’s steady. God’s washed our hearts. He’s given us new hearts. So we can come to him with steady, consistent hearts.
Full assurance of faith means that we come knowing that God’s promises are true. He’s not talking about how we feel. Our feelings can go up and down and are not a reliable guide to anything. No, this is something far more important than whether we feel God is reliable. This is about living as though he’s reliable.
And so we come to pray, absolutely certain that God has said he accepts us, delights to hear us when we pray, wants us to bring our needs before him.
And if we’re not absolutely sure, the answer is not to focus our gaze on our feelings until we manage to create a sense of calm that is conducive to praying. No – we focus on the thing we can be sure of – the promises of God. We focus on them, and then we act on them.
Matthew chapter 7, verse 7: Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find.
Verse 11: How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him.
Mark chapter 11, verse 24: Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.
John chapter 14, verse 13: Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the son. If you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it.
John chapter 15, verse 16: so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
And John chapter 16, verse 23: Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.
Here’s another thing that keeps us from praying. Does God really want to hear my prayers? Do they get through, or do they bounce off the ceiling? Are my concerns too small for a big God to be interested in? If I could get an audience with God, would it make any difference.
Well, says the writer, you can be sure.
So let’s pray
So this writer doesn’t try and drive us with guilt into praying. He gets alongside us and reassures us where we need it. You are clean. You can be sure that God will hear. So let’s draw near to God and get whatever mercy, grace, help and strength we need.
This is to encourage us in our individual prayers. We all need a gentle reminder that Jesus’ death has cleaned us totally, inside and out. We all need a gentle reminder that there’s no need to draw near to God timidly, but we can come in full assurance of faith. Let us draw near.
And this is to encourage us to pray together as well. It’s good to gather in worship like this Sunday by Sunday, because we are the people that Jesus has cleaned once and for all, and he’s promised that he will be with us when we meet in his name. It’s good to gather once a month for the prayer meeting and offer to God what is on our hearts. It’s good to meet up with one or two friends over a cup of coffee and pray together.
And if the idea of praying has never occurred to you, then the wonderful truth is that you can. First and foremost you need to make sure that you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We need our hearts washing before we can draw near to God, and that comes as we turn in trust to the Jesus who died for us and rose again.
And then once you’ve done that, God’s door is always open. You’re clean. He’s promised to hear you so you can be sure. So you can speak to the God who made Jupiter and Mars. He doesn’t want you to worry about trying to find the right words or the right way to do it – he just wants to hear your voice.
One of the mobile companies that has since been subsumed into another one ran an advertising campaign ten years or so back. You could imagine yourself talking on the phone to the Prime Minister, or to Gary Barlow, or to Jessica Ennis. Who would you like to have a one to one with?
Or there’s the ice breaker where you have to name 3 people you’d like to have dinner with – dead or alive. To which the overused joke is to name 3 contemporary figures who are very unpopular in the public eye, and say that you’d like to have dinner with them – all dead.
Wouldn’t it be amazing! To sit down for half an hour with one of your heroes. To talk about life. Hopes and dreams, and what stands in the way of them.
That is nothing compared to the opportunity to spend half an hour with the God who designed every orchid on the North Downs. Who knows the number of hairs on your head.
And yet the way is open. Not just for half an hour, but to talk to him whenever you wish. To bring your deepest longings and fears to him, knowing that he knows you, loves you and that you can trust him.
Conclusion
So, says this writer: Let us draw near.
You are clean. You can be sure.
So let’s pray!