Wise prayer

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Heavenly Father, thank you that you have spoken to us in the Scriptures. Thank you that all Scripture is breathed out by you. Thank you that your word makes us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. So speak to us now, we pray. Give us hearts ready to be changed and shaped by your word, and teach us to pray. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

‘Get Wise’ is what we’ve called this short series on Proverbs. Last week we thought about the wisdom that teaches us how to have glad hearts, despite the very many obstacles in our way. So that was about wise hearts. This morning our topic is ‘Wise Prayer’ – and that’s my title. We’re looking at just a short section – three verses. They are Proverbs 30.7-9. And they are a little gem, not least because this section is the only prayer in the whole book of Proverbs. It’s a prayer of Agur, son of Jakeh. How do we know that? Because it’s at the heart Proverbs 30, and Proverbs 30 has a heading embedded in the Biblical text itself. So Proverbs 30.1 begins:

The words of Agur son of Jakeh…

The next such heading is at the start of the Proverbs 31, which begins:

The words of King Lemuel…

So the whole of Proverbs 30 is the words of Agur son of Jakeh. Who was he? All we know about him is what we can glean from this chapter, but that’s enough to tell us a few things about the kind of man he was. He was clearly very observant – with a keen eye for what was going on around him, both among people, and in the natural world. In this, my family will tell you, he was very different to me. I’m never allowed to forget one occasion when I was walking home down Eslington Terrace, lost in some reverie or other and oblivious to what was going on around me. My daughter Katy happened to be coming down the other side of the road. She stopped and shouted across to me – ‘Dad!’ And kept shouting. And kept shouting, and got no response at all. A man was walking past her, listening to this. As he went by, he said to Katy, “I don’t think he’s your dad, you know.” Unlike me, Agur was very observant. And in connection with that, he seems to have had a passion for the created world. Proverbs 30 is full of it. He also had a passion for God – who he calls in Proverbs 30.3 the Holy One. What is more, despite the fact that we’re still learning from him thousands of years later, he was delightfully humble. So his sayings open with this (Proverbs 30.1-3):

The man declares, I am weary, O God; I am weary, O God, and worn out. Surely I am too stupid to be a man. I have not the understanding of a man. I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One.

It’s a case of the more he knows of the creation, the more ignorant he knows himself to be. And the more he knows of the Creator, the more he sees that God is so much greater than he can grasp. For those of us who feel similarly stupid, that helps us to identify with this Agur, whose prayer we’re looking at. Take a look, then, at how our friend Agur’s prayer begins. Proverbs 30.7:

Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die.

So for Agur, this is a big prayer. The horizon that he’s looking towards as he’s praying this is the very end of his life – deny them not to me before I die. This is what we might call his ‘life prayer’. These are the two key things that he wants God to do for him in his whole lifetime, before he dies. So, there are immediately two big challenges for us. The first is Agur’s deep dependence on God for the outcome of his life. He knows his life is in God’s hands. He knows it is to God that he must go to get the biggest things he wants in life. No-one else can give them to him. He turns to prayer – to asking God for what he wants. We need to be like Agur. The second challenge for us is precisely this life-time perspective that Agur has. He has lifted his eyes to the horizon of his coming death. So the whole of his lifetime is in his sights. And he’s asking himself what it is that he wants God to have done for him by the time he goes down to the grave.

We so easily get preoccupied with today that we live with our eyes on our feet, and we forget to look up to the horizon. Let’s learn from Agur to think about the big picture of our lives. I love asking people, “What is it that God wants to do with your life?” What are our Godly ambitions for our lives? There is an amazing question that Jesus repeatedly asks people. He says: What do you want me to do for you? What would we answer? Agur has two big prayers for his life. What are ours?

Note also that this is Agur’s prayer for himself. No doubt most of our prayers should be focused on other people, but it’s also right at times for us to pray for ourselves. That could be self-centred, but it doesn’t have to be. Our prayers for ourselves must be not self-centred, but God-centred. This God-centred prayer of Agur’s encourages us to pray God-centred, big picture, whole of life prayers for ourselves. So what does Agur ask God for? He says there are two things. Let me remind us of the whole prayer. And as you listen, see if you can pick out what you think are the two key prayer requests here. So Proverbs 30.7-9:

Two things I ask of you;deny them not to me before I die:Remove far from me falsehood and lying;give me neither poverty nor riches;feed me with the food that is needful for me,lest I be full and deny youand say, “Who is the Lord?”or lest I be poor and stealand profane the name of my God.

I think that Agur’s two things are there at the beginning and end of Proverbs 30.8. First:

Remove far from me falsehood and lying…

And secondly:

…feed me with the food that is needful for me…

So in the light of those two prayer requests I have two headings. First, wise prayer wants truth. And secondly, wise prayer wants God. We’ll come to how I get from feed me the food that is needful to me to wanting God, but one thing at a time. So:

1. Wise prayer wants truth

The start of Proverbs 30.8 again:

Remove far from me falsehood and lying…

Now what’s really going on here? What does God want to teach us through this part of Agur’s life prayer? At first this might just sound like a moral issue. A character issue. The other day I was listening to a podcast about Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech. He said:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

And Agur’s prayer is at the very least a prayer that the content of his character will not be lies and deceit, but will be truth and honesty. That is so important. We need to pray for that. Our children, our church and our society need us to be people of immense integrity. Agur’s prayer is at least a prayer for such integrity. But it is more. At its heart, this is about Agur’s relationship with God. That’s clear precisely from the fact that he’s asking God to remove the lies from his life. He knows it’s God’s work. He can’t do it himself. Without the work of God’s Spirit in him, he’s a slave to lies. It’s clear also from what Agur’s just said before his prayer back in Proverbs 30.5-6, where he’s already set out the antidote to lies. He says this:

Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

The truth of God’s word promotes trust in God. Matt was teaching us from Psalm 19 last Sunday evening. Psalm 19.7 echoes Agur, when it says:

The law of the Lord is perfect,reviving the soul;the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

To learn that kind of wisdom is part one of Agur’s life prayer. Then there’s part two. So:

2. Wise prayer wants God

We’ve already begun to see that wanting truth and wanting God are very closely tied to together. But how do we get from Agur’s second life prayer request to a desire to know God? Agur himself spells it out. So his second request is there at the end of Proverbs 30.8:

….feed me with the food that is needful for me…

Does that ring any bells with you? It’s very like the prayer that Jesus himself taught his disciples to pray:

Give us today our daily bread.

In terms of his physical and material needs, then, Agur wants only what he needs. He doesn’t trust himself with more or less than that. It’s as if he thinks a more godly person than him might be able to handle having too much or too little, but he’s not confident he would. That brings us back to Agur’s humility, from which we would do well to learn. So in the middle of Proverbs 30.8, just before his request for the food he needs, he says:

give me neither poverty nor riches…

And then in Proverbs 30.9 he spells out why. And the reason is that he’s afraid that either one, given his sinful heart, might tend to destroy his relationship with God. And his relationship with the living God is more valuable than anything else to him. So the first half of Proverbs 30.9 is about what he fears could be the danger of riches:

feed me with the food that is needful for me,lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?”

What a warning that is for those of us who have more than we need! It’s a warning that crops up in other parts of the Bible too. So back in Deuteronomy, after the Exodus from Egypt, the Lord warns the Israelites about the danger that lies ahead when they enter the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey. Deuteronomy 8.7-17:

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land…a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing…And you shall eat and be full…Take care lest you forget the Lord your God…lest, when you have eaten and are full…then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery…Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’

I reckon Agur knows both Deuteronomy and the sinfulness of his own heart, so he wants to avoid the dangers of wealth. What about us? If we do have more than we need, what’s the best way for us to avoid those dangers? Generosity. 1 Timothy 6.17-18:

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

With Agur, we must never get to the point where we forget God and say to ourselves, “Who is the Lord?” We must set our hope not on stuff but on the living God. And in a different way the same warning applies to those who are poor and don’t have enough as well. That’s Agur’s point in the second half of Proverbs 30.9:

give me neither poverty nor riches…lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of the Lord.

Last week we thought about the example of the apostle Paul as we see it so movingly in his Letter to the Philippians. I can’t help but be reminded of that in this context. Paul says of his own experiences of both riches and poverty (Philippians 4.11-13):

I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Maybe, then, we should pray like Agur, but also pray like Paul that we’ll learn contentment whatever comes our way. And why? Because above all we want to know God. With Agur, we want God to purge from our lives whatever would separate us from him, or hinder us from knowing him better. With Paul, we want to be able to say (Philippians 1.21-3.10):

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain…I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things…that I may know him and the power of his resurrection…

Wise prayer wants truth. Wise prayer wants God. We cannot have one without the other. Food for the body and food for the soul. Jesus said (Matthew 4.4):

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

It is Jesus we need. When we read Agur’s prayer with New Testament eyes, then we can see more clearly than he did that Jesus Christ was the one he wanted and needed. Jesus said (John 8.31-32):

If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

And he said (John 6.35):

I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

So what do we learn from Agur’s gem of a prayer? Agur prayed (Proverbs 30.7):

Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die…

We all know about death of course – in theory. But maybe we have that gut instinct that somehow we’ll be the first person in history death passes over and we’ll live for ever. And if that’s overstating it, then we probably think there’s no way we’ll die young. And we’re probably right, but maybe not. I remember some years ago praying in this building with a student who had recently discovered she had a brain tumour. A short while later she died. Whether or not we die young, though, life races by. And it is critically important that we take the opportunity now to make room in our lives for Jesus, crucified and risen. If what he says is true, then our eternal destiny depends on how we react to him. If we take him at his word and trust him, then knowing him brings victory over death.

What did Agur want from God? He wanted truth not lies. And he wanted God himself. Wise prayer wants truth. Wise prayer wants God. Jesus is the one who gives us both. What do you want God to do for you before you die? Remember that question of Jesus: What do you want me to do for you? Let’s learn from Agur. And let’s put knowing Jesus at the heart of our life prayers. Let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, thank you for the humility of your wise servant Agur. Help us to learn from him. And thank you for Jesus, who told us that he is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. As each one of us looks towards that horizon of the day when we will die, help us to learn to make Jesus the centre of our lives, and of our desires, and of our prayers for ourselves. We pray in the name of our risen Saviour. Amen.
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