When we treat sin lightly, we treat grace lightly. But when our sins are confessed in public worship with the help of the Scripture and the grace of our Redeemer is rehearsed using God’s own words, it seems obvious to me that true worshipers must be the more likely to gain a deeper sense of the majesty of Jesus Christ, than otherwise.

As a long-serving ruling elder, I sometimes find myself in worship longing to hear more Scripture used in the main prayer of the service. God’s words are incredibly powerful, “. . . living and active . . . able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrew 4:12). To a degree often greater than the words of men, Scripture operating in concert with the Spirit brings the worshipers or listeners to a renewed awareness of the depth of their own sins—both the regenerate and those unregenerate in whose hearts the Spirit is beginning to work. When the heart is pierced with the horror of its rebellion against the living and true God, then the grace of Christ in the gospel becomes far sweeter and more precious than it ever could with a lesser sense of one’s depravity and indebtedness to God.

Jonah, Daniel, Mary, and Jesus

Scripture itself gives us a number of examples of believers in the One true God (including the One true God, Christ) who pray privately or publicly using portions of the Scripture that were written by their time. I’ll refer to Jonah, Daniel, Mary, and Jesus here. When the prophet Jonah—a patriot of his country which helps explain his reluctance to go to Nineveh—finds himself in the belly of the fish, he prays seemingly with King David’s psalms in mind: “I called out of my distress to the LORD” (Jon. 2:2), very close to Psalm 18:6, “In my distress I called upon the LORD”; “Salvation is from the LORD” (Jon. 2:9), very similar to Psalm 3:8, “Salvation belongs to the LORD”; and, later, when Nineveh turns “from their wicked way” and God declares He will not punish them, Jonah prays, “I knew that Thou art a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness . . .” (Jon. 4:2), which resembles Psalm 103:8, “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness” (also similar to Psalm 86:15).

When Daniel and his friends’ lives are on the line unless someone is able to tell and interpret King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, after the Lord graciously reveals the mystery to Daniel he prays with apparent reference to Job: “It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, And the light dwells with Him” (Dan. 2:22), similar to Job 12:22, “He reveals mysteries from the darkness, And brings the deep darkness into light.”

After Mary has been told she is to bear the Son of God and she visits Elizabeth, Mary says in part (Luke 1:50), in a prayer-like exaltation of God: “AND HIS MERCY IS UPON GENERATION AFTER GENERATION TOWARD THOSE WHO FEAR HIM,” quoting the Septuagint (LXX) of Psalm 103:17 (LXX is indicated by capitalization); and, a few lines later (Luke 1:53), “HE HAS FILLED THE HUNGRY WITH GOOD THINGS,” again using the LXX, Psalm 107:9.

Jesus Himself—“the Word became flesh”—often quotes the Scripture, although nearly always in teaching or preaching, as in Matthew 11:29, “. . . and YOU SHALL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS,” from LXX’s rendering of Jeremiah 6:16. But at Calvary, Christ prays from His own Word (Matt. 27:46), “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?” (LXX, Psalm 22:1).

So, with these Bible examples of the godly employing God’s Word in their praying, shouldn’t this provide encouragement for those pastors and others who lead in public prayer to do the same—to some degree? One pastor I know puts it this way: “. . . praying the word [always] moves us through a pattern of thought, and over time, teaches us to think biblically!”

To Conclude

Another pastor I’ve sat under says that when we treat sin lightly, we treat grace lightly. But when our sins are confessed in public worship with the help of the Scripture and the grace of our Redeemer is rehearsed using God’s own words, it seems obvious to me that true worshipers must be the more likely to gain a deeper sense of the majesty of Jesus Christ, than otherwise.

Of course, this is no argument for carelessness and lack of preparation for public prayer—simply quoting Bible passages—or relying on “meaningless repetition” as Jesus warned against. Quite the opposite! Employing Scripture itself in no way relieves the one praying of the responsibility to think well, reflect privately ahead of time about his upcoming public prayer, and seek the Lord before coming before Christ’s flock and, most important, his God, in worship—which is hard labor at times.

But, oh, how sweet the reward; to share in some way the high privilege of helping the body of Christ draw even a little nearer to her God to whom, as Psalm 75 says, we give thanks, “For Thy name is near.”