Introduction
Praying the Bible
Did anyone pray through Psalm 12 this morning? Remember our Praying the Bible series this past fall?
So this morning we are going to see the doctrine of prayer. We might think we are already familiar enough with it. But, as someone has said, “The best way to make a Christian feel low is to ask them how their prayer life is going?”
Can you pray for something after God has already answered it? Or, can God answer a prayer before you even pray it?
Message with Travis
At VBS Tuesday night, Bill said that Travis Sears is coming to youth camp. I said, “Did you talk to him today?” Bill replied, “He told me a few weeks ago that he could come to youth camp.” Then my brain starts processing my stress turning to joy earlier in the day when I asked someone to pray we get a lifeguard, I ask Travis if he could come, and he said that he will be there.
Trying to figure all of this out can be confusing, but we have to remember that God is timeless, so he sees the prayer the same time he sees the answer.
Wouldn’t that be nice, to see the prayer and the answer at the exact same moment? It would—but we’re not God. So we can’t. We have to pray. And then after praying we have to do what is so hard to our nature… wait.
The Reason for Prayer
Not to teach God
Why do we pray? We do not pray to tell God something that he does not already know. Remember Lesson 2 on God’s attributes? One of God’s attributes is omniscience, meaning that God knows everything that can be known.
Matthew 6:8⠀8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
We won’t go through it this morning, but the next few verses are the best way that we can pray. And while the Lord’s prayer is perhaps the best example of how to pray, we will just mention it briefly. In the Lord’s prayer, we…
- Pray for reverence
- Pray for his will
- Pray for sustenance
- Pray for forgivness
- Pray for guidance
- Pray for deliverance
God is the sovereign Creator, Provider, and Lord of all. He does not need us to teach him or inform him. However, when we pray there is something that actually happens. Some would argue that if God is the sovereign Lord then why should we pray. The reply is, since God is the sovereign Lord that is why we should pray—if he were not in control then why bother praying? But since he is in control, he is the very one we should take our concerns to.
To have a part in his will being done
So what is one thing that does happen in prayer? God uses us to be a part of his will being done on this earth just as the angels do God’s will in heaven.
The angels in heaven do the will of God. And they do it happily and with joy. They don’t reply, “I don’t know why God made us to serve him like this.” They don’t complain that God made them and chose them to do his will. They see it as the ultimate blessing.
Example of being chosen to start the Gamecock chant If Shane Beamer said, “I am going to pick two people to start the Gamecock chant at the game this fall.” And suppose he picked you and said go find a friend to come help you. You would not reply, “I don’t know why he picked me to do something that he could do himself, or that he could have picked someone else to do besides me.” Nobody would respond like that. They would count it the highlight of the year that they got to play a part in something being done that was going to be done anyway.
God is going to perform his will. We know that. We can read the last book and the last chapter and God wins.
And he picks us to have a part in his will being done. So, when we pray for God’s will to be done, we have a part in the mighty Lord of all doing what he is going to do anyway—accomplish his will. And isn’t it a blessing that little us get to have a part in it?!
To teach us faith and dependance
Luke 11:9–12⠀9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? 12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
Back to the story above: I needed a lifeguard and someone with an outgoing personality to do games. JM asked me to pray about his job. I asked him to pray about our camp situation. Once I got to church, I for some reason looked up an old message with Travis Sears and asked if he could speak at camp and if he knew a lifeguard. I didn’t realize that Bill had already talked with Travis and that he could come.
So what did that scenario do? I prayed. God answered. God answered before I prayed. Why didn’t I know the answer? Could it be that God waited to reveal the answer because in that moment I needed to know that I need to depend on God more than I depend on my own planning or worrying. Had I known weeks earlier, I wouldn’t have been as stressed out. But, had I known earlier, I wouldn’t have seen this as an answer to prayer. And having seen it as an answer to prayer, it glorifies God. And I got to have a part in his will being done. Because greater than me learning about a lifeguard is me learning trust in him. That is his will. And I got to have a part in God showing me he can answer prayer ANY TIME because he is OUTSIDE TIME.
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
The same is true of us as we grow in the Lord. He is wiser than we realize.
The Effectiveness of Prayer
We hate to wait. We are a very impatient culture. How strange was it last week that the 12-second pause in my opening clip seemed much longer?
Effective ≠ Immediate
Effective = God’s timing, and being outside time he is in no rush.
What makes prayer effective/effectual? What makes prayer actually mean anything? Is it our mighty spirituality?
Elijah
James 5:16–18⠀16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. 17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
Verse 17 says Elijah was just like us. He had passion, emotions, just like we do. And what were his like? They could be very courageous and very quickly be very cowardly, very hopeful and soon very hopeless.
That is the man James uses to teach us about prayer.
What did Elijah pray for? He prayed for something that only God could do.
Q&A
If you have ever watched a Q&A, maybe of Bible topics, the focus of the video is not really on the ones asking the questions. Sometimes the questions are not all that great. Sometimes they make no sense at all. The person asks their question, and then the camera goes to the person at the front/stage and they give the answer. What makes the videos enjoyable are not Q&… but Q&A
Prayer is effective because of the one giving the answers. Our prayers might be long or short, frequent or infrequent, formal or informal… but the main thing to know is that what makes prayer effective is not no much the one asking but the one answering.
Our Attitude in Prayer
Has anyone had a bad attitude lately. vaguely describe my failing this week
Sometimes we can have a not so good attitude even when we are doing some “good” things.
Humble
Often we don’t know how God should answer something. That is why we are asking. But also often we don’t even know what to pray in a situation.
Romans 8:26–28⠀26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
We should be humble in our prayer because…
- We are weak people.
- We are ignorant people.
- We often have hearts and minds not aligned with the will of God.
- We are not the ones in control.
This should cause us to be humble when we pray.
Example of someone who asks a question, and it becomes obvious they really didn’t want an answer. They didn’t want to hear what I have to said. Why? Because in their mind they really knew all that they wanted to know.
Unhindered
1 Peter 3:7⠀7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
We covered this in our 1 Peter series. But that was fall 2021. It is possible to be praying, and your prayers are being hindered; not by the demonic spiritual world (though we will talk about that next week) but by your own self.
In our families, specifically here spouses but extending to others, the words from our mouth should match what God wants in our heart. Compared to God we are very weak vessels, and as we would want God to be towards us, we should be like that towards others.
Like writing with the cap on a pen, or sending a message in a deadzone, so is a prayer life that is speaking kind to God and harsh to the ones we should love the most.
Hopeful
What is hope?
the looking forward to someth. with some reason for confidence respecting fulfillment
We ain’t there yet but we can tell we are on the right road. We can see the destination on our GPS even when the road we are currently on doesn’t look anywhere like where we are going.
Example of company changing the neighborhoods to make it more appealing for a promotion video.
That is most of us isn’t it? We want the path to look just like the destination. We want this life to look like heaven.
And it won’t.
2 Corinthians 12:7–10⠀7 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. 8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. 9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
Have you ever prayed about something and got no answer. And you pray again and get no answer. And you know someone is listening, you know God is there but it is as if he isn’t coming to the door?
Example of the child closing the door and saying nobody is home
It can feel like that when we pray sometimes doesn’t it? It is as if God has closed the door in our face and left us standing there alone.
Paul prayed that this thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan (note the merging of a physical description and a spiritual cause) would leave. And it didn’t. It stayed. What Paul prayed for was not answered at all in the way he wanted.
Christian, if it seems that your life is burdened with one or two constant struggles and you wonder if they’ll ever be gone, read some of the stories in the gospels and remember that one day Jesus is going to heal you just as quickly as he healed them. One day, the things you love will be constant and the things you hate will be gone. Just keep waiting for Jesus to pass by.
Why does God sometimes allow us to suffer? He does so because he knows we can all become very prideful. He will teach us patience, dependance, humility, holiness, and that there are things more important than what we think? It may be very good things; Paul didn’t ask for anything bad.
All-Knowing and All-Wise
Supposedly tomorrow, Monday, OpenAI will make an announcement at 1:00pm about a major happening with their company. If you haven’t used it, it is almost like talking to a human who is “almost” all-knowing. But it is just a robot. A smart robot.
Do we ever treat God like that? God is not a glorified ChatGPT that we take our quick and often selfish or plain silly questions to and run away with a quick fact that we can use to impress people.
God isn’t just all-knowing but he is also all-wise. He knows HOW to best use his knowledge. Some people get knowledge and don’t know how to use it. They try to impress or tear down or appear superior.
Since God is wise he knows not just the answer we want but he knows the answer that will make us most like Jesus Christ.
And how did God respond to Paul?
In your weakness, my grace will be sufficient to make you strong. It doesn’t remove the heavy burden, but it does allow you to remain hopeful when others wonder why it hasn’t crushed you. Imagine the messenger of Satan attacking Paul… and attacking… and attacking… and wondering when Paul was going to break. He never broke.
When we pray we may get the answer we want. Sometimes a loving Father will do that for his children. But sometimes we don’t get the answer we want. But because of the work of Jesus Christ, God can also look at his children and instead of giving us the answer we want, to glory the work of Jesus Christ, he will give us the grace we need.
Remain hopeful:
When God doesn’t give us the answer we want, we can trust that he will give us that grace we need.
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