1 Kings 8:22-30: Approaching God in prayer

Introduction:

The prayer of Solomon is one of the longest prayers in the Bible, being 30 verses long.  Nehemiah 9 is the longest with 33 verses, and the longest prayer of Christ is 26 in John 17. The Puritans were known to pray for 45 minutes in their pulpit prayers.  Most long prayers are burdensome for very few are able to sustain the necessary focus and spirituality to keep the congregation interested for so long.  But in this long prayer there is nothing wasted.  Solomon’s prayer like many others in the bible is a model prayer. We will break it up into two parts. Verses 22-30 are the introduction of the prayer which focus us much upon God and how we ought to think when we approach Him.  And then the second part which we will look at next week is a series of 7 requests all in relation to man’s sin, v31-53.