Prayer

In the movie Bruce Almighty, Jim Carey portrays a man (Bruce) who has gotten so fed up with his miserable life that he screams out in anger at God. He gets the Lord’s attention, and He decides to let Bruce have a shot at being God for a while. At first, Bruce is just loving it – he abuses the power and gives himself everything and anything he wants and desires – a new sports car, a more attractive girlfriend, a better job, even a potty-trained dog.

But then, suddenly, Bruce begins to be bombarded with a never ceasing cacophony of voices in his head – prayer requests. They are driving him crazy! So he has to come up with some way of dealing with them – watch the clip to see what happens:

[Show Clip from Bruce Almighty[i] – begins with Post-It Notes, through Computer - saying “Yes” to every request.]

Of course, the idea of saying “Yes” to every prayer request eventually leads to disastrous consequences. Millions of people win the lottery, the stock market goes crazy as everyone’s stock goes through the roof. The local hockey team wins the Stanley cup, and the celebration combines with the protesters who are upset about the lottery scandal, and it eventually it all leads to chaos and riots.

Obviously God does not say “Yes” to every prayer – and with good reason. How could He? There are probably as many people praying for the Bears to win this afternoon as there are for the Saints. Others are praying that they will win the $200 million PowerBall lottery, when God knows, and history has shown, winning that lottery destroys as many lives as it enhances.

So does God answer prayer? Which ones? Why or why not? How do I pray prayers that will get answered? Does prayer really make any difference at all? What’s the secret?

There are a lot of questions that surround our topic of the morning. During these days we are focusing our attention on Developing Spiritual Disciplines, and today we are examining the discipline of Prayer. We have said that Spiritual Disciplines are “Spiritual activities that only we can do that allow God to do what only He can do.” Like a farmer who prepares his fields and does his part to bring in a crop, then relies on God to cause the seed to germinate, the rains to fall, and the sun to warm the earth, so we must do our part – by practicing these disciplines – to prepare the soil of our souls for the growth and fruit that God desires to produce in us.

Over the course of this study we will be looking at 12 different disciplines, but that list is not conclusive. One resource I have lists 62 disciplines! We have said over the last few weeks that we aren’t expecting anyone to do all of these – but rather to listen and learn about them, and ask the Holy Spirit to indicate to us the disciplines He wants us to develop in our lives.

Today, we are focusing on prayer. Of all the spiritual disciplines we will study in this series, prayer is the most important. How can I say that? How do I know that prayer is the most important spiritual discipline? It is prayer (and only prayer!) that allows us into the deepest parts of our spirit and God’s Spirit. William Carey, who is rightly called “the father of modern missions,” a man greatly used by God, said, “Prayer – secret, fervent, believing prayer lies at the root of all personal godliness.” Richard Foster has written that “it is the discipline of prayer that brings us into the deepest and highest work of the human spirit.” When we pray, when we pray properly, we are aligning our spirit with God’s Spirit – His motives become our own, His will becomes our will.

Did you notice that I said, “when we pray properly” in that last sentence? Did you know there are proper and improper ways to pray? James 4:3 says, “You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, to spend what you get on your passions.” There are, indeed proper and improper ways to pray. Wrong motives, requests that are counter to God’s will and design – those are prayers best left unanswered! If we are going to pray right, we need to learn and practice. That is why prayer is described as a discipline.

Real, deep, meaninful and meaningful prayer is something we learn. The disciples, perhaps in one of the few times they didn’t put their foot in their mouths, had the wisdom and the foresight to ask Jesus in Luke 11:1: “Lord, teach us to pray.”

Turn, if you would, to that passage of Scripture. Luke, chapter 11. Let’s read it together from verses 1-13.

2 He said to them, "When you pray, say: "'Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread. 4 Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.'" 5 Then he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' 7 "Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs. 9 "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

There are a lot of things we could look at in this passage that could teach us about prayer. We could talk about persistence – in verses 5-10, Jesus is obviously encouraging his followers to be bold and persistent in asking. “Be bold,” he says, “Keep on asking, keep on knocking, keep on seeking.”

We could talk about God’s goodness to us. In verses 11-13, Jesus is assuring us that God our perfect and holy Heavenly Father, whose love is everlasting, will certainly give good things to his children.

Prayer is a topic that we could easily spend weeks, even months discussing. In fact, later this year, when we move to a series entitled, “The Battle in the Trenches,” we are going to spend several weeks on prayer – but for this series, we’re just spending this one week, so I want us to just focus on a few truths that will help us develop this discipline.

I hope these truths will encourage you in your prayer life. I hope these truths will get you excited about prayer and that you will commit yourself to prayer as a discipline in your life.

If I had to define prayer with one definition, it would be this: “Connecting with God.” You and I are so familiar with the words of Jesus prayer here that we don’t realize how shocking the first two words were to the people who first heard them. “Our Father” was a concept unknown to the Jewish world. God was refered to as “the God of our fathers,” “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” or “Oh, Lord our God, maker of heaven and earth.” All of which are accurate – but when Jesus was giving His disciples an example of prayer to follow, He used an amazing, intimate word to describe God – “Father.” He continues that image later when discussing earthly fathers giving good gifts to their children. Prayer is a moment of father to child intimacy on the very best level. The God of the Universe welcoming His child into his loving embrace to hear the content of his heart.

This week I had a guy come and visit me that Larry and I met at the TAG Center. We had talked about distance running and working out, and had made a pretty good connection. He came to see me this week, but he said he didn’t know why – he said he didn’t believe any more – but deep inside him there was a desire for something. “Church” had really turned him off – it seemed to him that people were just coming and doing their “religious” thing and leaving – it meant nothing to him, and he suspected it meant nothing to most of them, too.

As we talked, he was able to clarify what it was that he was looking for – a “connection” with God. A real, personal, meaningful communion with the God that he sincerely believed was real, but had been unable to have a meaningful with. We had a great talk – and since his schedule doesn’t allow him to come to church on any Sunday morning, he and I are going to meet once a week for a time of seeking and connecting with God.

“Connecting with God” describes what a lot of us are looking for. We want more than “religion” – we want connection – intimacy – meaningful dialogue. And that is what prayer is. Prayer is the most important of all the disciplines because it brings us to a perpetual communion with the creator of the Universe on an intimate level – Father to child. And just like a father and child, everything we ask for is not given. Sometimes fathers have a perspective that a child does not understand, and he has to do what the child thinks is cruel.

Chuck Swindoll told a story once of having to hold his child’s head still while a doctor did a very painful procedure on the boy’s ear. He was in a position where he was looking right in to the eyes of his little boy as the doctor inflicted great pain on the child – and the boy simply couldn’t understand why his daddy was doing this to him – but the doctor had convinced Chuck that it was best this way. But the boy was too young to understand it – he just held him tight and still. Chuck said that by the time it was over, they were both in tears. Folks, that’s the way it is with God and you – sometimes he simply holds you still in his arms while you go through the pain. He has a perspective that allows Him to know why and how long, and the ultimate purpose – often we wouldn’t understand if he tried to explain it – so He just holds us as we go through it.

“Connection with God” defines prayer by giving it purpose, direction, and a map to guide us. Our prayer should be about communing with the Creator. We talk to Him; He talks to us. We connect with God so that His power and His life can flow through us. When we connect with God, we become stronger spiritually. When we connect with God, we will know His will for our lives and will be able to make Godly decisions. When we connect with God, we are able to resist temptation. When we connect with God, we are able to forgive one another and love one another even when we are wronged, because we begin to see them as He sees them.

Wow, all of that because of prayer? Yup – now you see why I believe this is the most important of all the disciplines. But because it is so vital to a mature and victorious Christian life, it is an area that gets lots of attention from our enemy. Satan wants to destroy our prayer lives! He wants us to get discouraged in prayer, or, even better from his standpoint, to become apathetic about it.

2. PRAYER IS A DISCIPLINE TO BE LEARNED.

Secondly, I want to point out something that I think is vitally important, but I think most of us are unaware of. Prayer is a discipline that is to be learned. Take a look again at verse 1 –

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord Teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples…”

Now the disciples were all Hebrew men. They had been raised in a Jewish nation, in Jewish homes. In that time, the Jewish faith was the central theme of life – education was based on their faith, their daily activities revolved around the Law of Moses and the traditions that sprung from it. They were no strangers to prayer – but they sensed something different and deeper in the prayer life of Jesus. Their prayers had become meaningless – simply “religious” – but they watched Jesus and knew they need to learn to pray better.

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a great thing! It means that prayer is something that we can develop – that like any other skill, we can refine and improve on our performance. It means that I can ask around, and get advice from people who seem to have a strong prayer life – just like the disciples did to Jesus, “Teach me to pray.” It means that I can study – dig deep into biblical passages that refer to prayer, read books by others about their prayer life. It means I am “free to question, experiment, even fail, because I know that I am learning.”[ii]

If I go home today to watch the Bears/Saints game, and my television doesn’t work, I’m going to start searching for the reason. I’m going to check the batteries in my remote, then the power cord to see if it’s plugged in, then I’ll check the breaker to see if it’s blown. Then I’m going to go to Larry Meredith’s house to watch it! The point is this – if my prayer life isn’t “working” – I’m not seeing results, or if my prayer life seems hollow, then I need to search for the reason. Am I praying wrong? We said before that James tells us that we ask and do not have because we ask with wrong motives. Is there a block to my prayers? Peter says that if we are having trouble with our spouse, our prayers are hindered. (I Peter 3:7) Perhaps like the disciples, I need to learn more about prayer, or it may be that God is trying to teach me patience or persistence, such as in this passage, or in the story of the persistent widow in Luke 18.

My point is this – don’t think for a moment that just because you occasionally close your eyes and utter a few familiar words that you have this prayer thing licked. I can’t tell you how many times I have people come to me and say, “Pastor Bob, the Bible says, ‘Ask anything in my name, and you shall have it.’ But I haven’t won the lottery yet, or got my new car, or new husband…” God is not a giant ATM machine in the sky, and prayer is not the PIN number! What did I say was a great definition of prayer? “Connecting with God.” That means that I need to be in connection with Him as I pray, or I am not really praying at all.

If I may, I want to keep that whole TV illustration going for just a moment. While we are sitting here, dozens of television signals are passing through this room, along with cell phone signals, wireless internet frequencies, even a radio signal from this mouse to the laptop across the room – but we can’t see them, interact with them or impact them unless we have the right transmitter or receiver.

People often pray and pray and pray with all the faith in the world, but nothing happens because they are not tuned into God. We can only pray for others and for our circumstances and for ourselves only after we have connected with Him, and that happens when we quiet ourselves from the busyness of this world, and separate out a place of communion and connection with Him. Unless we have sought Him first, and have “tuned in to” His heart, then our prayers are like signals that pass through eternity with no reception. When we offer up prayers that are not linked to the heart of God, they are just “vain repetitions” – empty words.[iii]

Soren Kierkegaard once remarked, “A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was
talking. But he became more and more quiet until the end he realized that prayer is listening. ” Here is where I think building on last week’s thought about meditation can be helpful. We have to quiet ourselves to be able to hear God. It is difficult to understand someone if both people are talking at the same time. Why should it be any different in prayer? If we are talking constantly, how will God ever get a word in? Listening to God is the first important thing in prayer. Listening is the second and third. We must allow ourselves to become calm and to tune ourselves into God’s voice.

When was the last time we began a time of prayer in silence – listening to God, seeking His heart – allowing him to prompt us in our prayers? I meet with a group of pastors regularly, and one of them, Russ Walker, impressed me during our prayer times. We take turns, each pastor kneeling in the center while the others pray for the needs he has shared with them. Russ always waits silently while the others pray – then when he does pray, he starts off with, “Brother Bob, I feel God leading me to pray for you this way…” It is a powerful, wonderful experience. Have you ever prayed like that – quiet yourself and listen for God’s prompting in your spirit as to how to pray?

With all that being said, we must remember that prayer is simple. We should never make prayer too complicated. I know that after just talking about prayer being something we learn the idea that it is simple seems like a contradiction, but it’s really not. Running is simple – just about every two-year-old learns to run as soon as they master walking. Running is simple – but running a marathon takes learning and development of skill. Those who succeed are those who are not overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task ahead – they start where they are, and grow one stride at a time.

Prayer is simple; praying for effect takes leaning and development of the skill. Those who will develop this discipline will not be discouraged by the challenge of learning and growing. They will start right where they are – but not be satisfied there. They want to grow stronger and more effective one stride at a time.

At the end of our text, in Luke 11, Jesus says, “If you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” That statement was made in the context of prayer. When we ask God to teach us to pray – you can be certain that He will give that good gift to you. I encourage you, each one of us, to take this discipline to heart, and ask, along with the disciples, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

[ii] Richard J Foster, Celebration of Discipline(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998) p.36.

[iii] Ibid. p. 39.