As Jesus talks about prayer for the third time in the Sermon on the Mount, he adds a bit of confusion by saying all we have to do is ask and we will get what we have for. But our experience tells us otherwise.

Pastor Brent looks at Matthew 7 and shows how our emphasis on receiving might miss the point of asking in the first place. This message ends with an extended time of prayer as a church family.

Pastor Brent Clark breaks down the Lord’s Prayer and shows how we can break out of the religious praying and into prayer as relationship.

Discussion Questions

1. Take a moment to reflect on what it means that the God of the universe wants to speak to you.
2. What has been your biggest barrier to hearing God speak to you?
3. What action can you take to be prepared to hear God the next time he speaks to you?

Introduction

What comes to mind when you hear the words “Prayer Meeting”? If you’ve been around church for some time, I assume you are familiar with the concept. A prayer meeting is a time where Christians get together and they pray. There can be a lot of variations of this activity. They can be loud, boisterous times like my wife, Kerri and I experienced at a Pentecostal church in Tulsa, Oklahoma one time. Everyone was praying out loud all at the same time. This was a new experience for us, and for Kerri, it was a little unsettling.

Prayer meetings can also be calm, serene times, with light piano music playing in the background while everyone prays quietly to themselves. Maybe your parents dragged you to one like this as a kid. . .it seemed to go on and on, and at the end a pastor or someone that was unafraid to pray in front of other people would say a prayer aloud and at the final “amen,” everyone knew it was over…finally.

Prayer meetings can be emotional or stoic. They can be engaging and exciting or dull drudgery. What comes to your mind when you hear the words, “Prayer Meeting”? For many, if not most, I dare say that the initial reaction to these words are not usually positive. In fact, they might be down-right negative.

Words we equate with “prayer meeting” are boring, waste of time, obligation and quite possibly, unnecessary. Why do churches pray together? After all, when Jesus talked about prayer, he mentioned things like, “Go into your closet,” or “don’t pray so that everyone can be impressed with your fancy language.”

Is this just some ploy for churches to check up on us? To see if we actually pray by gauging if our prayers improve from time to time? “Oh look, there’s a new person praying out loud. They are really making progress!” Or is something bigger in play? Is there a significance to praying together that we need to be aware of?

Today we are wrapping up a series where over the last six weeks we have been looking at the topic of prayer. Often when we think of prayer, we think of our own personal prayer life. In fact, all the messages up until today have pretty much addressed this side of prayer: why you should pray, what you should pray, how you listen to God, when you can’t hear God. But today I want us to take a look at what I think strikes fear into the hearts of most people. We fear because it can seem unnatural and weird, and if we are honest, it strikes fear because often it can feel like a big waste of time.

In fact, let me ask you, have you ever been to a prayer meeting that genuinely changed your life, or where you felt the power of God, or felt a moving of the Holy Spirit so powerfully? I would hope some of you have. But I think the reason many of us de-prioritize praying together is that my first description of dull, boring, waste-of-time comes closer to our mental image of what praying together looks and feels like than maybe what it should be, which is powerful, life changing, world changing.

What is the purpose of praying together?  Is it necessary, and if so, why?

Background

In the book of Acts, we find the story of the early church. This book was written by a man named Luke, who also wrote the Gospel of Luke.  Acts begins at the end of the forty days following Jesus’ resurrection. Luke in his other writing has told us all about Jesus: his birth, ministry, death and resurrection, and a few things that happened after his resurrection from the dead.

The story picks up now with Jesus, his disciples, and some of his family together at a place called the Mount of Olives. Jesus gives those gathered some final reminders, final instructions, about taking his message to the entire world. And miraculously, right before their eyes, he is taken from their sight. Let’s read from this point what these people did and see if we can understand why.

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city.  When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying.  Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James, They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brother. —Acts 1:12-14

Before we get to why I think praying together is significant, I think it is important to look at some critical elements from when these people prayed together.

Verse 14 says “they all” prayed together. Who was all there? Well, we know the apostles, or disciples, the eleven men who Jesus called to follow him during his ministry were there, but we see it wasn’t just them. Luke makes a point to also tell us that “the women” were there. Women like Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna. They were with Jesus. They financially supported him. And they were there.

Think about the significance of this detail being included. The first century wasn’t kind to women. Women were barely better than property. They certainly weren’t respected or even considered in significant events. And yet, Luke points out that they were here at this moment. It tells me that when it comes to praying together, we don’t limit participation based on age, sex, race, or any other qualifier we might put on it. We should include all.

Also there were skeptics, doubters, or at least former skeptics. We see that Jesus’ brothers were there. These were the same brothers that had called him crazy earlier. They had said he was out of his mind. (Mark 3:21) And here we find them with the others. Praying together is not limited to certain people. There is no pre-qualification of spiritual status. When they got together, everyone was involved.

Next we see they “were together.” A better way to put this is that they were of one mind or one passion. In the King James translation, this is where my dad would tell the joke, this is where the first car is mentioned in the Bible, because the KJV says they were all in one accord. There was unity among them. This is very important. There weren’t 120 people with 120 agendas. They were all after the same thing. This may seem like a small thing, but spend any time in church and you understand that sometimes the most difficult thing to have is unity.

I think of it like singing in a choir. My background is in music. I’ve sung in church choirs and high school choirs, in college choirs, and even community choirs. And I love it when a group of singers hits some amazing harmony. But did you know that one of the most difficult ways to sing is to sing in unison, when everyone sings the same note?  I know it sounds easy, but trust me, it can be the hardest thing to do. There are many elements that can make it sound off: wrong vowel placement, wrong tone, and the slightest variation can sour it quickly. I had a choir director in college that worked us very hard on singing in unison.

But for this group of people, there was unity. No back biting.  No gossip. No “Jesus liked me more.” When people don’t like each other, they can’t pray together very long. Either you will stop criticizing or you’ll stop praying because you can’t do both at the same time. These people were united in passion.

Next we see that it was constant, continual. Think obstinate determination. They didn’t just pray once and then move on to something else. And they could have. And I am sure that the temptation was there to go back to their old jobs, to just jump right into the task Jesus had called them to do of telling the world about what Jesus had done and of his love. But they didn’t. They kept praying until there was an answer.  And finally, this one is kind of obvious, but I think it is worth pointing out: they prayed.

Now, I think it is interesting to see that during this time, there were other things they did as well. Judas had killed himself after betraying Jesus, so they felt like they needed to replace him. So they did. I am sure they did some reminiscing about Jesus. “Do you remember when Jesus said this,” or “Do you remember the look on that guy’s face when Jesus answered his question,” but even among the other things they did, at the core of it all, the foundation they were building on was prayer. It wasn’t an afterthought. It wasn’t thrown in at the end of their time together. It was the primary reason they were there. It was their first priority. And Luke makes sure it gets put first when he relays the story.

This isn’t the only place we find the early church praying together.  A quick look through Acts reveals that this was something they continued to do.

Acts 4 – Peter and John were arrested for teaching about Jesus, and the church prayed for them.

Acts 6 – The church prayed when they needed to select the first deacons to help serve the church.

Acts 12 – Peter was in jail and miraculously he escaped. When he went to find the other Christians, he found them praying.

Acts 13 – Church leaders prayed and the Holy Spirit told them to send out Paul and Barnabas as missionaries.

Acts 14 – Paul and Barnabas prayed as they appointed leaders in the churches they planted.

Acts 16 – Paul and Silas were in jail praying and an earthquake opened the doors and lead to the jailer and his family coming to faith in Jesus.

Acts 20 – As Paul left he church at Ephesus they prayed together.

You get the point. This isn’t a one time thing in the beginning of Acts. A precedent was set and guided the early church and should be a model for us today. We need to have a priority of praying together. But I think that if we fail to understand why they prayed, we will fail to make it a priority for ourselves today.  Why did the early church pray together?”

Praying Together

First, praying together reminds us of our dependence upon God and one another. Dependence is not a concept for us red blooded Americans. We like rugged individualism. “I can do it. I don’t need anyone.” But praying together reminds us first and foremost that we need God and that we also need one another. We need God for our daily needs. We need God for forgiveness. We need God for direction. And we need one another for encouragement and accountability.  When we are ready to give up, someone is there to pick us up and help us keep going. We remember that we are not in this alone when we see others around us praying like we are. 

Also, praying together helps keep a proper perspective.  If we aren’t careful, we can become so tunnel visioned that we forget there is a bigger world out there. We forget God has us here for a purpose: His kingdom come. His will be done. We also forget that there are people around us with issues as big or bigger than our own.

When we only pray alone, we find our prayers can become shallow and self-centered. By nature we are selfish people. And we find our prayers become selfish as well. “Help me God. Bless me God. Bless my family. Do this for me.”  

While praying together, in community, I see the foolishness of some of my prayers. I look around and see the mom and dad asking for others to pray with them for their son who has a debilitating disease and I am reminded that my prayer for stuff isn’t nearly as important as a prayer for healing, and if not healing, then a prayer for the parents to have grace and faith to walk through a trial this large.

Praying together reminds me about the parent praying for their child to return to God, or the salvation of a co-worker, or the desire of the church to see lives and communities transformed by Jesus. It keeps things in perspective.

Praying together also prepares us for things to come. Go back to the passage we read in Acts. Why did Jesus tell them to wait and pray? What were they waiting for? Acts 2 tells us they were waiting for The Holy Spirit. Praying together prepared them for what was to come.

When we pray, it prepares our hearts. It brings us to a place of corporate confession and unity as a group. Prayer prepared the early church for the Holy Spirit and the thousands who would come to know Jesus. The empowering of the church came about because they had spent time praying as a group. They were ready.

Whenever God wants to do something great in the world, he first stirs his people to pray. When God wants to touch a family, a church, a city, or a nation, he begins by moving his people to pray. Prayer is always the first stage in God’s plan to change to the world. 

Lastly, praying together equips us for the real battle. This isn’t a struggle against one another or us against our world or the culture. In Ephesians 6, Paul writes to the church about the struggle we are in. The real battle that is taking place to keep the message of Christ from reaching all nations. He writes,

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”—Ephesians 6:12

And after describing how we prepare ourselves with salvation, faith, truth, and peace, he writes,

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. —Ephesians 6:18   

Again, this was not written to an individual. This was written to a church. Together we should be praying for the real battle that is being waged, not against your coworker or neighbor, but in the heavenly realms. Prayer is what equips us for this.

Results of Praying Together

I think the best example of praying together is illustrated in the most famous prayer ever prayed: The Lord’s Prayer. We don’t often think of the Lord’s Prayer as corporate prayer unless we are saying it together in worship, but when looking at the phrasing that Jesus used, the pronouns in the prayer indicate that these are not instructions on how to pray when you are alone. This prayer is how we are to pray when we are together.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name,

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins,

as we forgive those who sin against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

—Matthew 6:10-13

Notice anything about who is doing the praying?  Even the very first word is collective: our Father, not my Father, not your Father, but our Father.

Give us. Forgive us. As we. Our debtors. Lead us. Deliver us.  Is there any question that Jesus himself made it a priority for those who followed him to pray together?

Why is this so important? What can happen if we take time to make praying together a priority? I think we can go back to the book of Acts to see what did actually happen. . .The Holy Spirit came and empowered the people, miraculous things were done, people had boldness in telling others about what Jesus had done in their lives.  Many thousands came to Christ, missionaries were sent out, churches were planted, lives were changed. Neighborhoods, communities, cities, nations and even the entire world were transformed.

Acts 17 tells us that these men and women were actually accused of turning the world upside down, all because God’s people came together and prayed.

I wonder if we are not praying together as a church, could it be a sign that we don’t really expect great things to be done through us? Or is it that we really don’t want anything more than what we’ve already got?

Yes, we should be praying individually, but we need to be praying corporately as well, remembering the words of Jesus when he said

Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them. —Matthew 18:19-20

So, what do we do? First, know that prayer doesn’t have to be led by the church. It can begin with one or two people who have a burden to pray.  Share that burden with others and just start praying.

Or corporate prayer can happen when someone asks you to pray with them about something, do it…right then. You may have seen this here at church. Someone will stop me and say would you pray with me about this and I usually say, let’s do it now.

Take advantage of the times we get together as a church to pray. Every Sunday morning at 8:45 we pray. This coming Wednesday, we are praying.  As Author J Edwin Orr wrote, “No great spiritual awakening has begun anywhere in the world apart from united prayer.”

Let’s all make praying together a priority, praying continually and of one mind and passion, for Jesus Christ to be known and lives and communities transformed by the Holy Spirit.

Today we take up a topic that I am positive we have all had to deal with at some point in our lives. In fact, I dare say that some of us here this morning are currently living in this moment right now. Over the last month, we have been looking at the topic of prayer in this series we call “Dialogue – Recovering the Lost Art of Communicating with God.” For four weeks we have seen how prayer is necessary; it is not superfluous, but actually needed. God wants us to pray and our prayers can change things.

We have also looked at what things we can pray for and how we should just do it. Don’t worry about whether  should or could; just pray. God is too big to allow us to mess things up.

We have looked at how the most important part of praying isn’t the words we say but the heart we approach prayer with. Humility and boldness should be behind everything we pray.

And last week we looked at how God still speaks to us today if we will put ourselves in a position to be able to hear him. If we live our lives with zero margin, no down time, no moments of quiet, we might be missing out on what God wants to say to us.

What is it that makes us think that the world will not go on without us for even five minutes if we were to stop, calm ourselves, and spend a few moments in still and quietness? I think our own self-importance doesn’t want to find out that the world really would continue if we took a breath.

Today, I want to continue this idea of listening to God, building upon what Ryan shared last week. Yes, I believe God still speaks, but what about those times in our lives when God is silent?  Have you ever experienced a time like this? You prayed and prayed only to hear crickets chirping. Maybe you are seeking direction in a big decision you have to make. Should I take this job? Should I buy this house? Should I attend this university?These are all big decisions. They are all moments where if God is speaking, we want him to do so with loud, audible words so we don’t screw up our lives. And we pray and we pray. And we might even listen and listen. And then. . . silence.

In these moments, we typically just make a decision and move on. We think, “Well, God must be busy right now. He’s keeping the entire universe going. I get it.” But what about those times in our lives when we REALLY, REALLY, REALLY need God to hear our prayers and for God to speak into our lives?

When your mom or dad is diagnosed with cancer and not given much time to live, you need God to hear and answer your prayer that they might be healed. When your marriage is falling apart and you can’t seem to get along for anything; when even just walking by each other seems to lead to a massive fight; when you’ve tried everything but you know where the marriage is headed, you need God to hear and answer your prayer. What if when you most need God to hear you and you to hear from him, God is silent?

Is God silent because he doesn’t care? Is he silent because he has moved on to deal with something more important? Is he silent because you just aren’t good enough for him to care about? Why does God seem to answer others’ prayers and not mine?

When we are NOT going through difficulty, these sound like silly questions. But when you are in the middle of it, and I dare say some of you are there right now, when you’re in the middle of it, these are all honest questions.  They flood your mind when you so desperately need to hear from God, but your prayers seem to hit the ceiling and go no further. God seems to be a million miles away, or worse it seems that he just doesn’t care. Let’s take a look at this today and find out a few things about the danger of silence, the hope of silence, and what to do when God is silent.

The Danger of Silence

Most often, we find silence in the midst of suffering. We find it most difficult to hear from God and most of our unanswered prayers seem to occur during times when we are experiencing difficulty and life is not going well. These are highly emotional times, high stress times. And honestly it is the worst possible time for this to happen. . . But it does.

Unpreparedness

One danger we face is that we are often unprepared. We talk about this frequently here at Ashworth Road. There is an underlying assumption that to be Christian means to be happy and trouble free, to never experience anything uncomfortable. But this is probably one of the most unbiblical thoughts you can have. If the Bible teaches us anything it is that suffering is a part of this life. This world is broken. I am broken. You are broken. All God’s creation is broken. And as long as we live in a broken world, around broken people, there will be hardship and difficulty.

This is not a popular message, I know. Most people think, “Why is he saying that? He’s supposed to make me feel better about my life and this is making me sad. Stop making me feel sad, Brent!” I could tell you that life is going to be perfect, that you and your spouse will never fight, your kids will never disappoint you, you will get every job you apply for, every promotion you want, and no matter what you spend, your bank account will have an endless supply of money. But what happens when I tell you that and as you step one foot out of the door, you and your spouse get into it. Or your kid decides to use a sharpie on the carpet at home. Or you go to the doctor tomorrow and hear a diagnosis you hoped you’d never hear. The greatest danger we face is when we are unprepared for these moments in our lives.

This past week, I read a story of a pastor (Mike Woodruff) who was into health and fitness and decided to start swimming. He found out that he was in the .02% who are susceptible to fraying an artery in his vertebra by repetitive head turning. This led to a stroke right before Easter.  He was already preparing a sermon series on suffering for his congregation at the time. This solidified what he wanted to say.

There were four points: If you live long enough you will suffer. Americans are bad at suffering. You can prepare for suffering. Suffering can be a pathway to growth.

We need to understand that suffering and silence will occur. And if we are prepared for it, we can greatly reduce the next danger we face in the silence, which is a damaged faith.

Damaged Faith

Any time life throws us a curve ball there is a chance that we can be pulled away from God. Our faith is shaken. We blame God. And when we pray and pray and feel like God isn’t listening, we could easily throw our hands up in the air and just say, “I’m done with this. What’s the point?”

In the Old Testament, we find the story of Job. Job was a godly man. He was someone God held up as an example of faith.  Satan came and accused God that the only reason Job was so godly was because he had such a good life, but that if God would allow Satan to mess with him, Job would walk away from God.

God allows Satan to begin picking apart Job’s life, piece by piece. First his possessions and wealth are destroyed. Then his family is killed. Then even Job’s health is taken from him. And all during this time, God is silent. He never gives Job a heads-up it is about to happen. He never tells him, “Don’t worry, I’ll make it all better at the end.” All Job knows is that one day life is good, and the next day it’s not.

Fortunately, what we find in Job is faithfulness. But not so much for his wife. In fact, after he is covered with painful sores, she comes to him and says,

Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die! —Job 2:9

There is a real danger of this attitude when we don’t understand what is going on. We want to blame God. We want to ditch our faith. After all, we think, “I’m a good person. I go to church. I give my money sometimes. This shouldn’t be happening to me.” We are conditioned to expect certain results if we put in the right things. We think in terms of cause and effect: “I do good, so God only allows good to happen to me.”

But that’s not the way this world works. Yes, God will take care of us, but it might not be in the way we think he should. Job’s response to his wife gives us great insight into this mentality.

He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.  —Job 2:10

Job shows us that God’s silence will reveal the true depth of our faith.  Rabbi Abraham Heschel observed, “Faith like Job’s cannot be shaken because it is the result of having been shaken.”

Misunderstanding

A third danger we need to be aware of is misunderstanding the silence. We want to make sense of it. We want understanding. We want to answer the question “Why?” And when the answer isn’t immediately available, we begin filling in the gaps, sometimes erroneously. Going back to our friend Job as our example: Job didn’t know why things were happening. He didn’t understand what was going on. He kept his faith when everything around him told him not to. And it wasn’t just his wife that wasn’t helpful. His friends came along and piled on as well.

In chapters 4-23 of the book of Job, we find his friends “encouraging” him and Job responding to this so-called encouragement. One friend tells him,

Think about it. Innocent people don’t get punished.   —Job 4:3-4

Another friend tells him,

God will not reject a blameless person.  —Job 8:20

And a third friend says,

Confess your sin so that life will get back on track.  —Job 11:14, 15,17

Every one of Job’s friends told him, “This is YOUR fault. What have you done to deserve this? Fix it. Confess your sin. Return to God.” But this is a misunderstanding of what was happening to Job.  Most of the time we correlate God’s speaking and his silence to our obedience or sin. But God’s silence is not necessarily a reflection on your sin or your righteousness. His silence can be caused by sin, but it is rarely due simply to sin or rebellion. After all, those living in rebellion to God usually don’t seek God in prayer anyway.

I’ve referred to this book previously, but Philip Yancey writes in his book on prayer, “Some, but not all, unanswered prayers trace back to a fault in the one who prays. Some, but not all, trace back to God’s mystifying respect for human freedom and refusal to coerce. Some, but not all, trace back to dark powers contending against God’s rule. Some, but not all, trace back to a planet marred with disease, violence, and the potential for tragic accident.”

We just need to make sure that we are prepared when it happens, that we don’t let it destroy our faith when it does, and we don’t jump to conclusions as to why it might be happening. Because even in the silence, we can have hope.

The Hope of Silence

How can there be hope in silence? These moments of silence we are talking about are the most difficult that we can ever experience. They have the potential to destroy our faith. How can anything good come from them?

As you read through the Bible, you can quickly see that if you are currently not hearing from God, you are in good company. Many people in the Bible experienced their own times of unanswered prayers, silence, and waiting for God. Abraham, Joseph, David, Job, and Moses were all people who had great faith and they had heard from God before, but all experienced times where God seemed absent. All had prayers that seemed to go unanswered.

The greatest example of this we find in the Bible though is in Jesus himself. In Matthew 26, we find Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He had just had the Last Supper with his disciples. Judas was already off to bring his captors to Jesus. And we see Jesus, alone here in this place, crying out to God the Father, a prayer that is deeply personal and  deeply emotional.

Then  Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsamane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”  He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled.  Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.  Stay here and keep watch with me.”

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.  Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping.  “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter.  “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.  The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”

He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” 

When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy.  So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.

Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting?  Look the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.  Rise, let us go!  Here comes my betrayer!”  —Matthew 26:36-45

Three times Jesus prayed and asked if there could be another way. Three times Jesus cried out to the Father. He prayed with utmost humility and boldness. He brought his request to God. He had great faith that his prayer could be answered. And when Jesus cried out in his hour of greatest need, his cry was met with. . . silence.

In what was the most difficult moment of his life, when he needed and wanted an answer, he received none. And we know the rest of the story. Jesus was arrested. He was tried and convicted. His was brutally beaten, mocked, and abused. He was led out of the city with his cross on his back to the place called Golgotha. And he was crucified.

And on the cross, he cried out, a quote from Psalm 22,

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.

And we can look at this moment in history and say “How could God be so mean? How could God leave Jesus to go through this moment without a single word?” Or we can look at this for what it is: the most significant event in human history came as a result of the silence of God. When Jesus prayed for salvation from death, he did not get it. Instead he got the salvation of the world.

What can God do through the periods of silence in your life? What if he’s not being silent to be mean or nasty to you, but to help you develop an even greater spiritual depth than you ever imagined, an even deeper relationship with him that you ever thought possible.

Hopefully hearing this helps you get through the difficult moments. We have a savior that has experienced the deafening silence as well. He is a sympathetic savior. He’s been there as well. So, understanding the dangers and seeing that there is hope, what do we do?

What To Do When God is Silent

Here are some very practical things you can do when you feel like your prayers are not working.

Examine your life. Even though not every unanswered prayer is the result of sin, it doesn’t hurt to begin there. Make sure you have confessed and removed any barriers between you and God. What is more important to you, an answer to your prayer, or your relationship with God?

Know that silence is seldom permanent. It may not be in your time frame, it seldom is, but it isn’t forever.

Know that silence doesn’t change who God is. He is a good God. He is in control. He cares for his people. God is love. None of this changes, ever.

Know that God does hear. Do not confuse God’s silence for apathy. In fact, it is probably just the opposite. His silence is for something greater than we know right now.

Know that God is still working. Do not confuse God’s silence for absence. God cares. God is still at work.

Learn to wait. Like a woman who must wait nine months for the arrival of her child, waiting doesn’t have to just kill time. It can be used in anticipation of what is to come.

 Appreciate unanswered prayer. Is anyone other than me really grateful that sometimes God doesn’t answer your prayers? You might pray diligently for something only to look back later and breathe a sigh of relief. As one pastor put it, “God will either give us what we ask or what we would have asked if we knew everything he knew.” Trust that God knows what he is doing.

See if God is really silent or just not answering how you want. The Apostle Paul had a persistent prayer request that God did answer, just not in the way he had hoped. 2 Corinthians 12 we read:

…in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  —2 Corinthians 12:7-9

Paul wanted one answer. He could have been stubborn and said, “God is ignoring me. Don’t ignore me God!” But instead, he heard what God was saying and even though it wasn’t what he wanted, he received it and even got to the place where he said,

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  —2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Henry Blackaby wrote in the book Experiencing God, “You can respond to the silence of God in two ways. One response is for you to go into depression, a sense of guilt, and self-condemnation. The other response is for you to have an expectation that God is about to bring you to a deeper knowledge of Himself. These responses are as different as night and day.”

Conclusion

Sometimes what causes us the most problems and confusion is when God seems to say nothing at all, but we have to remember that just because there is silence, it doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist. He is there. He still cares. He is still working on our behalf even if we can’t see it, or hear it.  We cannot confuse his silence for apathy or absence. Maybe, just one reason for it is to create a deeper longing within us.

An article I read this week called “When God Is Silent” put it beautifully. “Why is it that ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ but ‘familiarity breeds contempt’? Why is water so much more refreshing when we’re really thirsty? There is a pattern in the design of deprivation: Deprivation draws out desire. Absence heightens desire. And the more heightened the desire, the greater its satisfaction will be. It is the mourning that will know the joy of comfort (Matthew 5:4). It is the hungry and thirsty that will be satisfied (Matthew 5:6). Longing makes us ask, emptiness makes us seek, silence makes us knock (Luke 11:9).” 

Are you sitting in the silence? Are the dangers resonating louder than the hope? Can I encourage you this morning now to pray through the silence? Tell someone what you are going through. Open up about it. I promise you, they have been there. There is no shame in the silence. The only way we get this wrong is if we stop praying. Trust that God is near, he has not abandoned you. It might just be through the silence that you experience the greatest growth and deepest spiritual depth you couldn’t have even imagined.

Today I’ll be continuing our series called Dialogue: Recovering the Lost Art of Communicating with God.  Now to begin, I want to tell you a story about a recent conversation I had at Caribou Coffee earlier this week.

I went to Caribou on Tuesday to start my day with time reading and praying.  I wanted to get a start on this message and just start my day off on the right foot.  I got my coffee, sat down in one of the big leather chairs, and was posting to my youth Instagram account when the guy next to me, a strange-looking, older gentleman, started eyeing me up.

Finally, after continually glancing over at me he said, “You know texting is why I’m still here.”  I answered, “Why’s that?”  And without getting into the details, an hour and 15 minutes later, he had told me all about his mom’s death, her genealogy, the history of Quakers in America, a detailed description of German grand pianos, and that the neighbors behind his house had probably cut down his cherry trees while he was gone.   As you can imagine, this conversation was a bit one-sided.

Occasionally, I might ask a question or try to connect his story with something about me, but he just kept talking, not really interested in anything I had to say.  And I’ll be honest, after all, my time to read and pray had been wasted listening to this stranger, I was a bit irritated, I felt ignored, and I wondered how he could be so unaware of social cues and the ability to have a back-and-forth conversation.

But I tell you this story because, realistically, this is a lot like our prayer lives.

• When we pray, we tend to do all the talking, filling all the empty space with words
• Plus, we only pray on our time, on our schedule, when we can fit it in – never thinking maybe God wants to say something to us at a moment we haven’t arranged an hour of quiet time at Caribou coffee.

So far in this series, we have been talking about how to approach God with your requests.  We have told you to keep it simple, not worry about getting the formula right, and to just humbly and boldly ask God for what you need, knowing prayer changes things.

But our series is called Dialogue – and today’s message focuses not on what we say to God, but on what He is saying to us!

I know many of us forget, but if prayer is a dialogue, then it’s a back-and-forth conversation.  Sometimes we do the talking and sometimes we do the listening while God talks.   That’s how every other relationship in our lives works, anyway.

Can you imagine what life would be like with your kids or our spouse if you were never allowed to say a word to them until they first approached you to tell you something?  And then when they did tell you whatever they had to say, they told you more, and then changed the subject, never coming up for air or giving you a chance to respond, or even say what you wanted to say?

I know my wife can vividly imagine that as there are times I’ll ramble on and on about my day and our plans for the night, never slowing down to ask her anything about her day or her thoughts.  And then, not so patiently, she eventually interrupts me with a “Do you even care about what I have to say?”

I’m sure there are times God feels like interrupting our prayers with that same line – “Do you even care what I have to say?” And I wonder, why do we do that?  Why do we so often think of prayer as a one-sided monologue from us to God and never give him a chance to speak back to us?

Do we believe that God actually WILL speak back to us?  Do we know how to recognize his voice if he did? I’m sure, if you’re like me, at least on one occasion you have wished you lived in Biblical times when God made his speaking really obvious to people.

• Adam didn’t wonder if he was talking to God as he spoke with God as they hung out in the garden together
• Moses heard God’s audible voice coming from a burning bush
• A donkey spoke God’s words to Balaam
• The Apostle Paul was blinded by a bright light and then heard God’s clear voice

But we wonder, does God still speak to us today?  And if so, how?

God Speaks in Scripture

We’re not the first people to ask that question.  When you look back at the disciples of Jesus, they were used to having Jesus be the one who taught them, challenged them, and basically was God’s voice to them.  But then they encountered the same question I’m asking today after Jesus ascended into Heaven.  How were they supposed to hear from God now?

In Acts 1 we find a simple story where the disciples decided they needed to choose a new disciple to replace Judas who had betrayed Jesus and then killed himself.  And without Jesus to instruct them or knowing how to hear from God, they prayed and say, “God, show us who to pick.”  And then they cast lots to determine the new disciple.

It would be like the next time Ashworth Road needs a new pastor – you just pick two people who are qualified, pray for God to show you your next pastor, and then ask them each to pick a number 1-10, and whoever is closest is God’s person for the job! That seems a bit crazy to us, but they didn’t know how else to hear from God on the matter.

But then if you keep reading in Acts, you immediately come to Acts 2.  And it’s in Acts 2 where we read of how God changed everything about how he communicates with His people.   You see in Acts 2, we read about how on the day of Pentecost – the Old Testament festival that always came 7 weeks after Passover – for the first time, God sent the Holy Spirit to the disciples.

Then we have this story where something that looked like flaming tongues of fire descended over each of the disciples and then they began speaking in other languages. And I understand, this part of the Bible has caused a lot of division between Christians today.  We have people who think everybody should speak in other languages, and we call them Pentecostals because of when this happened.  And we have other people who say that none of the supernatural gifts described in the Bible are for us today and they all stopped with the disciples. But today I want to bypass that debate and point us to something we should all agree on.  When God sent the Holy Spirit, he changed how He communicated with His people.

• In the Old Testament, God spoke directly to a few people, mostly he spoke to Prophets who spoke to people.  And so most Hebrews never heard God and never had any direct experience with him.
• But after the Day of Pentecost, we read about how God is going to pour out his Spirit on all believers.  And this means every person who is a follower of Jesus has direct access to hear from God through the Holy Spirit.

We read numerous stories throughout the rest of the book of Acts that shows God’s new method for communicating with his people.  I’ll just run through a few quickly:

• In Acts 8:29 we read about Philip, one of the apostles, walking down the road, and it says:

The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

• In Acts 13:2-3 we see another place where the Spirit talks to people.

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

• In Acts 16:6 we see the Holy Spirit directing Paul’s travels.

Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asi

• In Acts 20:22-23 Paul speaks directly about how the Spirit leads and speaks to him.

And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me

Now the reason I showed you those verses was to demonstrate how one of the normal functions of the Holy Spirit is to guide, direct, and speak to us on God’s behalf.  And I know, some of you may still be thinking – these are special cases.  These are the Apostles.  This was back then but isn’t for us anymore.  But that simply isn’t true.

Pauls tells us in Romans 8:14 that “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” So if we are children of God, we should be led by the Holy Spirit.  We should be able to hear the Spirit when He speaks to us.  That is the second half of the two-way conversation with God.  It is God speaking to us through his Holy Spirit.

Often I think we forget or take for granted this amazing opportunity we have.  People before Jesus didn’t really have the chance for prayer to be a two-way dialogue like we have, because they didn’t have the Holy Spirit.  But we do.  It’s unfortunate, however, that we squander this opportunity to hear from God because we aren’t comfortable with the idea of the Holy Spirit “speaking” to us or we don’t think we are spiritual enough to have that experience.

But here’s the amazing thing: I think most of us have had an experience (or many) where the Holy Spirit has spoken to us and we dismissed it or just didn’t think it came from the Holy Spirit.  You see, for Christians, it’s a normal experience for the Holy Spirit to speak to you. Sometimes this happens during your times of prayer and other times randomly through the day (like when God wants to speak to you and can’t wait for you to come to him in prayer).

I imagine some of you can recall a time when you simply felt compelled to check in on somebody to see how they were doing.  Or maybe you just had a feeling like you should give generously to a cause.  Maybe you prayed to find your lost keys and sure enough, then immediately remembered where you left them.

All of those situations are examples of the Holy Spirit leading you, compelling you, and speaking to you in various ways and situations.  They aren’t miraculous like speaking another language, but they are just as supernatural – GOD IS SPEAKING TO YOU.  Don’t miss this – God Still Speaks through His Holy Spirit.

Application

For some of you, this may be a really strange idea, but it’s true.  Prayer is a dialogue and God has things he wants to tell you.  You just need to know how to identify His voice and what to do when you think you hear Him.  And so with that in mind, I’m going to give you a few thoughts about how to communicate with God.

But first, I have to say that hearing the voice of the Spirit isn’t as mechanical as this list I’m about to give makes it seem.  Listening for His voice is sort of like riding a bike.  Somebody can try to tell you what to do, but then you simply have to try to do it and learn as you go.  And each time you ride your bike you get more comfortable, and in the same way, the more you learn to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, the easier it will become and the more normal it will be.

When God Speaks

1.     Listen

a.    God can be shouting at us, but if our lives are so full of busyness and noise, we may never notice.  We have to make time to listen to the Holy Spirit.

• When you pray, spend some time sitting quietly listening
• Make a habit of spending time reading the Bible.  Hebrews 4:12 says the Bible is “Alive and active.” That doesn’t mean the words dance on the page, but it does mean the Holy Spirit illuminates or springs words into your mind that He wants to speak to you.
•  Take time to unplug.  Drive without the radio on.  Relax at home without technology.  Just sit outside, enjoying God’s creation.

b.    Be sensitive to any proddings, random thoughts, or strong feelings you have

• Sometimes we miss God’s voice because we simply don’t recognize it.  We misdiagnose the cause of those feelings and fail to realize it’s actually a word from God.
• We must recognize that sometimes the Holy Spirit speaks to us through what other Christians tell us.  If they have the same Spirit inside them, God can use them as a mouthpiece to get our attention.  Be sensitive.
• We need to start attributing these small nudges to God.

c.     For example – most of my best ideas for ministry don’t come to me while I’m working diligently in my office.  No – they come randomly during my prayer time while I’m just sitting quietly thinking about all of you.  It’s when I stop trying to do, that God says, “Thanks for asking, Here’s what I would do.”  And while I could take credit for these ideas, I give credit where credit is due, and recognize these ideas that spring to my mind are the voice of the Holy Spirit.

2.     Examine

Speaking of giving credit to God for these things.  There is a place to examine and verify what we think the Holy Spirit is speaking to us.

Bible – everything the Holy Spirit says to us WILL line up with God’s truth

Other Believers – God put us into community and each of us has the same Spirit.  So if I feel like the Holy Spirit is telling me to do something and those I share that with tell me they don’t feel good about that, perhaps I’m the one who is not hearing correctly.

The reason this step of examination is important is that some people like to attribute to God the things that they selfishly feel strongly about.  And when others question them, they just say, “God told me so.”

So just be careful.  Don’t be afraid of following big dreams the Holy Spirit gives you, but test those dreams first against the Bible and the wisdom of others.

3.     Respond

While God graciously chooses to use us for his work in this world, he will never force us to do anything.  So every time the Holy Spirit asks us to do something, we have a choice in how we respond.  Will we trust that we are accurately hearing the Spirit’s voice and obey?  Or will we doubt ourselves or choose not to obey?

Additionally, if God speaks to you, asks you to do something, and then you ignore that, then what is the value in hearing the Holy Spirit?  And quite frankly, if you make a habit of not responding, then why would God keep talking with you?  If you keep asking somebody for help and they keep ignoring you, you’re probably going to stop asking them anymore, aren’t you?

That’s why it’s important for our dialogue with God to be more than just talking.  When we ask God for something, we don’t just want to know he heard us.  We hope he responds… that he acts.  And in the same way, God asks us for things, and he hopes we will respond to him.

So the next time somebody randomly pops into your mind and you don’t know why – stop what you are doing and pray for that person and then give them a call later.  Or when you are talking with a stranger who is telling you about a difficult situation and you feel like God wants you to pray with that person – do it, right then and there. Or when you hear about a ministry need and feel compelled to help – don’t wait for us to contact you, recognize that feeling as the Holy Spirit nudging you and respond.

To tie this all together, during my conversation at Caribou this past week, I could have gotten really frustrated that this man was “wasting my time” and tried to get back to my business at hand, but while this guy was telling me about German pianos, I felt like God was telling me, “Listen to this guy and try to tell him about Me.”

I didn’t hear an audible voice, but I did feel compelled.  I wasn’t praying when I heard this voice, God was just interrupting my day to let me know he had an assignment for me.  But I heard it, I knew it was from God because selfish Ryan would never think this thought, and I responded.

When he began talking about Quakers I asked him about his own faith and I kept trying to steer him back to Jesus.  Did I accomplish anything dramatic?  I don’t think so, but got to hear from God and faithfully respond!

Conclusion

And each one of us has this opportunity every day.  We have the Holy Spirit inside us and so we have the opportunity to hear from God through the Holy Spirit at any moment.  Will we be listening?  Will we respond? So far in this series, we have talked about taking a step of faith by bringing all of your requests to God.  We have challenged you to boldly come to God’s throne with your needs and wants.

Today I challenge you to take yet another step, from doing all the talking to allowing prayer to be a back-and-forth exchange with God.  It may feel weird, and you may be thinking you have no idea where to start.  But all you need to do is be still.

Again, there is no magic formula for how to prepare yourself for the Holy Spirit to speak to you.  Just give him time and space to speak – a moment when you aren’t speaking. If you do that, I trust that you will be amazed at all the things God communicates to you.  He will show you things in your own life; He will guide you through decisions you need to make.  And he will ask you to do some things for him – things that bring his kingdom to this earth.   Like listening to an old man talk about pianos and Quakers for an hour so that I could make a simple statement that really, all of faith is about Jesus.

So I encourage you, be listening.  You don’t know what you’re missing on this Christian journey until you begin to regularly hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in your everyday life.

Introduction

We  are in the middle of a series we are calling “Dialogue: Recovering the Lost Art of Communicating with God.” And that is just our fancy way of saying we want to spend a few weeks talking about prayer.  We began the series talking about why prayer is necessary. If we aren’t careful, we can get caught in the trap of thinking praying doesn’t matter, that it doesn’t do anything or change anything, so why bother?

But what we saw was that it does matter. God has invited us to be a part of his work in the world. He gives us a chance to take part. And taking part begins with prayer. We find that, as William Temple, a bishop in the Church of England, said, “When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t, they don’t.”

We look to Jesus as our example. Being both fully God and fully man, Jesus saw prayer as a very necessary part of his time on earth. And if Jesus saw a necessity for prayer in his life and ministry, how much more should we see the necessity for prayer?

Last week we looked at what can be some troublesome passages regarding what to ask for when we pray. Do we ask for anything? Do we ask everything? We saw that we need to pray in ways that glorify God, but that also our faith and obedience to God are part of the process as well.

We also saw that instead of worrying about whether or not we should pray this or that, we need to just do it. Just ask. Ask what is on our hearts. Ask big.  And allow the Holy Spirit to be the editor of our prayers after we’ve poured out of hearts.

Today, we move to more of what I would call the mechanics of prayer, or Authentic Prayer. I don’t know about you, but if you grew up like me, prayer was one of the things that could be more than a little intimidating. With a dad who was a pastor, I grew up in church. Every Sunday, people were called upon to pray out loud in front of the whole congregation, which in and of itself could be a frightening proposition.

What I remember about a lot of those who prayed was that it didn’t seem like they talked like I talked. Instead, I remember prayers like this: “Our most loving and gracious Heavenly Father, We thank Thee for Thy bounty that Thou Hast Bestowest uponest us-eth. Be Thou with the sick and afflicted. Guardest Thy our hearts that wandereth far from Thee. In Jesus-eth Nameth. Amen-…eth.”

Ok, I may have exaggerated there…a little. But it wasn’t far off.  Week in and week out I heard these types of prayers and I was intimidated. I could never pray like that. It seemed to take a new vocabulary. You’ve got to add a lot of Thees and Thous and put some “eths” and “ests” on the endeth ofest youreth wordests.

From childhood, many of us are taught, bow your head and close your eyes, hold your hands, start every prayer with “Dear God” or something similar, and end with “In Jesus name,” and “Amen.” Is this what prayer looks like? Does posture matter? You start to wonder if there is a class you need to sign up for where they teach Proper Praying 101: Your Guide to Proper Words and Postures of Prayer.

A Prayer Parable

In the New Testament, Luke shares a parable Jesus told one day to let everyone know what matters most when it comes to our prayers. Look with me at Luke 18 starting in verse 9.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:  “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.”

So, we begin the story with two individuals. A Pharisee — a deeply religious individual. And a tax collector —The worst of the worst in society of that day. Tax collectors were were crooked and cheated people out of money. They were very hated people.

Let’s keep reading.

The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”

Now catch what this guy is doing.  Normally in this culture, prayers were either silent or in a low voice. You could pray aloud but too loudly was seen as rude. But here is this guy, and he steps up beside someone in the front of the church.  And after he takes some time to put this guy down, he proceeds to tell God, “God, just in case you’ve forgotten, I’m pretty amazing.”  And he lists why: fasting twice a week. Fasting is the discipline of denying oneself food for a period of time. In this culture, the rules that he would have followed only called for fasting one day a week. But this guy, he did TWO days a week! Talk about above and beyond.

And then he reminded God of how much money he gave: a tithe, or a tenth of all he got, not on his net income but on his gross income and what he made off garage sales, and off the quarter he picked up in the HyVee parking lot. He gave a tenth of it all. This guy was pretty special. He was doing all the right things, checking all the boxes. Surely God would sit up and pay attention when someone like this prayed.

Let’s look at the other guy.

But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

So, this guy is a scum bag and he knows it. He is ashamed of who he is and he cries out for mercy. When comparing these two, it would seem like the one who spent his life following the rules and obeying the religious laws would have the most effective prayers. The other guy is a mess. He’s got sin in his life.  And we know God is a holy God so surely he won’t have anything to do with such a horrible person.

Jesus brings it home in the final verse of the parable.

“I tell you that this man [the tax collector], rather than the other [the Pharisee], went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Wait. What? The guy who went to church every week, gave money to the church, served on the hospitality team, who never cussed, smoke, or drank. . . his prayer wasn’t heard? But the guy who cheated people out of money, could barely bring himself to go to church, was so ashamed he wouldn’t even look up toward God. . . that’s the guy whose prayer gets heard? Yes.

Jesus highlights for us a profound principle that we need to understand when it comes to praying. Authentic prayer is more about the heart than anything else.

Misconceptions of Prayer

Some of us listen to this story and feel confused. It goes against what we think should be. But what Jesus does in this story is highlight for us some of the misconceptions we have about prayer. The first misconception is: Doing the right things equals being the right person.  

There is a difference between doing and being and if we think that just doing good things, possibly even the right things, will make our prayers effective, we are very wrong. There is something deeper at work here.

A second misconception is: My spirituality only needs to be better than those around me. Let’s be honest. We all do this. We size up the competition. Ladies, a woman you don’t know walks into the room. You look her up and down. What is she wearing? How much did it cost? How much can she eat to have that figure? And before the guys start nodding in agreement, we do it before the other guy walks in the door. What did he drive to get here? How much did that set him back? What impressive title does he have at work?

We seem to think that because we size one another up, God must do the same. And so as I look to my left and my right, as long as I am viewed as more spiritual than them, then God will certainly here my prayer. But Jesus is telling us that prayer is not a contest.

A third misconception we find here is the lie that tells us: I must be perfect. And if I am not perfect, what’s the point of praying? God won’t listen anyway. So, what I will do is work really hard to clean myself up, get my act together, then I will get right with God. Then I will start praying. Unfortunately, when you start down this path, you find that after you leave this misconception, the other two quickly come into play.

This Pharisee thought he had it all together. Even in his prayer, he basically tells God how grateful he is for himself. “Thank you God that I am so AMAZING!” You get the idea. God should be honored that this man is willing to be on God’s team. But what Jesus points out, as one commentator put it, “Position in the temple means nothing, position of the heart means everything.”

How to Pray

So, if this story shows us some of our misconceptions, does it show us how we are to pray? Absolutely.

Humility

It begins with humility.  This is probably one of the greatest differences we see between the two men. One thinks he is God’s gift to the world and to God. The other realizes who he is and cries out to God.

If we approach God from a position of pride, we can forget about effective prayers. And before we think this might not be our problem, let’s think back to the misconceptions. Do we do good things in an effort for God to make hear us? When we “perform” or serve God from a heart of pride, do we do so thinking that God owes us something? Do we believe God owes us because of how good we are? Our good deeds become like a bargaining chip.

But this can also go the other way. Several months back, I talked about pride and used a definition by CS Lewis to describe it. Lewis writes, “Pride is the ruthless, sleepless, unsmiling concentration upon self.” (Screwtape Letters, 9) Pride can cause us to think so poorly of ourselves that it keeps us from even approaching God at all. The tax collector came in humility, but did not let his feelings about himself keep him away from God either.

Augustine said, “you must account yourself desolate in this world, however great the property of your lot may be.” Before we can worry about what to pray for or even how to pray it, we must take care of the pride in our hearts. Humility doesn’t mean groveling before God. It means understanding who we are and who God is and not getting those two things reversed.

Do we feel unworthy when we pray? Sure. I do all the time. But as this parable highlights, God doesn’t just listen to good people. All through the Bible we see God listening to the prayers of people who we would also classify as unworthy. Moses was a reluctant leader with a hot temper. Samson liked the ladies a little too much. David was an adulterer and murderer.

As Phillip Yancey writes in his book on prayer, “A sense of unworthiness hardly disqualifies me from prayer; rather it serves as a necessary starting point.”

Over and over in the Bible we read things like “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6) or “Humble yourself before the Lord and he will lift you up.” (James 4:10)  So, we begin with humility.

The second part of this continues an idea that I shared a couple of weeks ago. You might remember that I called prayer one of the great paradoxes of faith. We talked about how God is in control and yet somehow our prayers do matter and can change the world. This is a paradox.

Boldness

How we are to pray is also part of the paradox, because we should not only pray with humility, we should also pray with boldness. Humble boldness is what we see modeled in the tax collector’s prayer. The writer of Hebrews in the New Testament talks about this boldness in prayer. Hebrews 4:14-16 says,

 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

This passage is so important in how we pray. A little background: in the old way of doing things, in the Old Testament, the only person allowed to enter the presence of God was the high priest and that was only one day a year, on the day of atonement. He would go into the temple and present an offering for the sins of the people.

But because of Jesus, his death on the cross, and his resurrection, there is a new way, a way for you and me to be able to approach God on a continual basis with unabashed openness. No longer do we need a human to go between between us and God. Jesus doesn’t even stand between us and God. He takes us to God removing all barriers and obstacles. We don’t have to slink in hoping to be noticed by God. The door is open. And in humility, we can boldly approach God.

Formulas and Posture

Now many of us want to talk about formulas when we talk about prayer. Formulas like A.C.T.S. (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) Or we want to talk about posture. Do we fold our hands? Lift them up? Or we want to talk about the words we need to use. What about “In Jesus’ name, Amen?” Just how important are the words?

There is no formula. If something like A.C.T.S. help you, use it. But don’t become so beholden to it as if that is the only way to pray. If it becomes mindless or passionless, stop. Do something different. When we are dispassionate about praying, it has become a duty. Change it up.

What about posture? There are a multitude of postures mentioned in the Bible. Peter knelt. Nehemiah sat down. Abraham prostrated himself. Many stood. There is no right way.

Words

And as far as the words, they are important. The Bible tells us not to go on and on babbling like the pagans. (Matthew 6:7)

The Bible also tells us there will be times we don’t even know what to say. Sometimes we just need to sit in the presence of the Almighty and allow the Holy Spirit to pray what we are unsure to pray. 

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. —Romans 8:26

Do we have to say “In Jesus’ name”? Sometimes we view that phrase as the fairy dust we sprinkle on our prayers hoping that is the magic that will get them answered. I personally think “In Jesus’ name” is good if for no other reason than it reminds us how are prayers are able to be heard in the first place: because of what Jesus did on the cross.

Most Importantly. . .

These questions are good and important, but what we don’t want is for anyone to be intimidated by prayer. The best answer to the how of prayer is best summed up this way: apart from authenticity, which we have described today as humbleness and boldness, there is no prescribed way to pray. Everyone of us is unique and how each of us prays will be unique as well. As Philip Yancey put it, “Jesus’ teaching on prayer reduces it down to three principles: keep it honest. Keep it simple. And keep it up!”

Don’t get hung up on the how if you have already addressed the heart, because authentic prayer is more about the heart than anything else.  

Conclusion

So, what attitude do you bring with you pray? Do you come as one who thinks because of your goodness that God owes you something?  Does your prayer look more like the Pharisee’s than the tax collector’s? Remember, Pharisees come in many packages. We must be on guard against pride shaping our prayers for our own benefit rather than praying for the glory of God.

Or maybe as we talk about prayer you are ready for this series to be over. You are intimidated by prayer. You know you should pray and you carry around enormous guilt and shame about your prayer life. I hope today you have seen that we do not have to be intimidated by prayer. God desires our prayers. He wants us to come boldly before him. Don’t allow fear and intimidation keep you from communicating with the One who desires to speak to you through prayer.

Let me encourage you on this dialogue journey: keep it up. If you have been praying, pray more. Push and stretch yourself in prayer, not out of obligation or because I said it, but because God desires it and wants to communicate with you. Keep using that journal to write down your prayers, your requests, and especially how God answers. This is something sometimes we have to push ourselves in. Our tendency is to drift away, rather than to pray. But remember the words of the prophet Jeremiah:

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. —Jeremiah 33:3

Introduction

Today we’re going to continue our series on prayer as a dialogue.  I hope with this message to encourage your prayer life – and to challenge you to pray like you never have before! 

Last week, Pastor Brent kicked off our new series by answering the question: “Does prayer change things?” Because if prayer doesn’t really make any difference in our lives, then it’s really silly to spend 6 more weeks talking about it.  Fortunately, the answer was clearly – YES! 

So, now that we have that out of the way, the next question becomes, “But what should I pray for?”  It seems like it should be simple for us to pray – as children, we are told we can ask God for anything.  But then life throws us a few curveballs and we realize things aren’t so cut and dried. 

For instance, maybe you’ve been in a situation where you found out your sibling or your good friend was getting divorced.  You knew their marriage was rocky, but you hate that it’s headed to divorce.  At that moment, what do you pray?  Do you ask God to restore the marriage, or do you ask God to help this person through this difficult time?  Maybe since we don’t know what to ask, we simply say – “God, whatever your will, may it be done in this situation.” 

Or maybe you have asked God for something trivial before, and then wondered if that was something you really should be asking God for.  Like, “Help my favorite team to win.” Or “Help me find my keys.”  Or maybe “Help tomorrow’s weather be sunny for the big party we have planned.” 

What I find fascinating is how simple prayer was for me as a kid.  And how, as I have read the Bible more, grown in my faith, and spent time with people from various denominational backgrounds, the more confused I seem to have become about prayer.  I imagine I’m not alone.  So today, I’m excited to work through this topic for myself, and hopefully you gain something from it as well as we answer the question: Can I Ask God For That? 

We Have Complicated Prayer

I think we have complicated this issue for a few different reasons:

• We know from experience that we don’t always get what we ask for
•  We see the health and wealth preachers and don’t want to be mistaken for being selfish
• We have learned about God’s sovereignty, and that his will cannot be thwarted, so we don’t want to pray something that he might not have planned. 

And honestly, I’m right there with you myself.  You see, I was raised in a charismatic church where we believed in miracles, believed in healing, and believed that God could do anything you asked of him.  It was simple – pray for the big things, pray for the little things, anything you wanted, just ask God and MAYBE he would answer. 

Then for a time in my life, my parents went to a health and wealth church where guys like Joel Osteen tell you that God’s #1 priority is for you to be blessed.  I learned how they read all the scriptures about prayer – how they point to our need for more faith so God WOULD HAVE TO open up the flood gates in answering our prayers.  Just name it and claim it.  You want that red BMW – just believe and receive.  But not everything I prayed, or the pastor prayed, came to pass.   

So then I had to wrestle with why prayers weren’t answered if I was doing everything right.  Maybe it was me – and my lack of faith.  Or maybe it just wasn’t God’s will.   

A few years after college, I connected with a reformed church.  Reformed theology places a really high value on the sovereignty of God, and their teaching honestly makes it much easier to pray  – start every prayer with, “God, I pray for your will to be done in this situation.”  And I never had a prayer go unanswered – mostly because I never asked for anything specific.  No matter what happened in the situation, it must have been God’s will, and that was my prayer, so God was answering 100% of my vague prayers. 

But eventually, I came to a point where I realized that perspective left me feeling like my prayers didn’t even matter.  God’s going to do what God’s going to do, so why bother praying.   

And that is why I was excited to dig into this message today – for my own sake.  Last week Brent talked about the two extremes of prayer (God is at our whim, God will do whatever He wants) – and I have lived life in both extremes for a time.  But what I want to know is where is the balance?  What should I be asking God for?   What should I be praying about? 

What Can We Pray For

The Bible has countless stories of people praying and even has numerous passages teaching us how and what to pray.  Looking at any single passage in isolation can lead us to any of these extreme views on prayer, and that is why today we are going to look at a few different passages on prayer. 

Let’s begin in James 5.  Here we read what James, the half-brother of Jesus, had to say about what we should be asking  God for in prayer. 

Reading from James 5:13-16 

Is any one of you in trouble?  He should pray.  Is anyone happy?  Let him sing songs of praise.  Is any one of you sick?  He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.  And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.  If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.  There fore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. 

So, what Can We Pray For?

1)    For help when you or someone you know is in trouble or needs help

So, you can pray for your friend going through a divorce.  You can pray that God helps you find money to pay the rent.  You can even pray when you’ve lost your keys and you know they’re going to cost $250 to replace that new-fangled remote start – believe me, I prayed.  And honestly, this is one of the times that most of us do pray, at least after we’ve already exhausted all of our ability to fix it ourselves.  We don’t always start with prayer, but when we get desperate, we always end up there.

2)    For healing for someone who is sick

This is probably the #1 time we at Ashworth turn to prayer immediately.  I can make that statement because our church prayer list is almost entirely filled with people needing healing.  And I, for one, am glad that I worship a God who cares when people are sick and can actually do something about it.  We should never feel bad about praying for somebody to find healing. 

Is that all?  No – let’s look at another passage:

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. –John 14:13-14

So when I look at the Bible, it really says we can pray for anything.  We can pray for the big things like our sick family member to be healed – no matter how sick they are.  Or for help with our finances that are a mess.  And we can also pray for the little things – like finding a parking spot near the door when it’s raining. 

According to the Bible, we can ask God for any of these things – as long as we meet a few prerequisites.   

Prerequisites

1)   John 14:13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the father may be glorified in the son.

Our request must glorify God – The reason God answers prayer is to lavish his love on us and to work through us to lavish his love on the world.  It’s when the world experiences God’s love, He receives the glory.  He is seen as the Almighty, all loving, relational father that He is. 

2)    John 5:14This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

Our request lines up with God’s will – This is the verse where we base this practice of ending our prayers with “God, if it be your will.”  The thing is, we use this phrase as though we don’t know what God’s will is and we hope that our prayer happens to fall somewhere within the will of God.  But the cool thing is, the Bible instructs us on a lot more about God’s will than some of you may think –                                              

• We know if we are praying for a marriage to be restored, it is God’s will.                                            
• We know, if we are praying for friends and family to come to faith in Jesus, it is God’s will.                                           
• Conversely, if we are praying to not get caught in that terrible sin, it’s NOT God’s will and it’s not something we can pray for.

3)    James 5:14-15 Is anyone among you sick?  Let them call the elders of the church to pray…and the prayer OFFERED IN FAITH will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up.

Our faith matters.  Clearly, from this verse we are taught that in our prayers, we need to actually believe that God is willing and able to answer.  This doesn’t mean that we have to be people of super faith, but we do have to believe God Almighty has the power to change things.  Now this is not to say that if your prayer is not answered, that you didn’t have enough faith, the topic of unanswered prayer is entirely too big for me to cover today, but fortunately, Brent will be discussing this in several weeks.

4)        John 3:21-22 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.

James 5:16 The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

And just like our faith matters, our obedience to God matters.  How we live can actually hinder our prayers.  Additionally, if we are disobedient and praying for God to bless our sin, we know that He isn’t going to answer that prayer.  Instead, we see this beautiful verse that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.  We should all see this verse as an encouragement that our prayers have the potential to change the world around us. 

Really, all these prerequisites point to our own heart and our view of God.  Are we praying prayers that are for God’s glory or our own?  Are we praying to accomplish God’s desire for heaven to come to this earth or for ourselves to experience heavenly comforts on this earth?  When our prayers join with God’s desire for this earth – to see his kingdom come on earth, for mercy and justice – we are much more likely to see our prayers answered.   

And those are big asks – bigger than we think we could ever accomplish on our own.   

Examples

But the Bible is full of examples of people praying to God with incredibly bold requests to see God’s kingdom advance. 

Continuing reading our James passage, we read James 5:17-18: 

Elijah was a man just like us.  He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.  Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

I love how James first reminds his readers that Elijah was a human being, just like them.  He wanted to make sure they didn’t think God only does the amazing for great prophets.  In fact, the first time the Bible ever speaks about Elijah, is where he asks God not to send rain for 3 years so that, at the end of the draught, King Ahab and the prophets of Baal would see the power of God.  At that point, Elijah’s not yet even recognized as a prophet – he truly was just a man who wanted to see Israel turn back to God. 

Or what about that outrageous prayer of Joshua, the leader of the Israelites, as they were entering into the Promised Land? We read in Joshua 10 that he prayed for the sun to stand still in the sky so they could continue their battle.  AND IT DID!  And as a result, the Israelites were able to continue marching forward, as God’s kingdom literally advanced. 

Think about these two prayers.  These are huge – they are beyond what we ever think of asking God for, and yet these two men, just like us, asked.  And God answered.   

Application

So you may be asking yourselves, Ryan, what are you telling me I should change about my prayers?

1)    Just ask – Stop being so concerned about if you can or can’t ask God for something.  God is your father who wants to give you good things.  And the Holy Spirit is the messenger who delivers your prayer and edits it for you anyway.  He fixes the typos, edits out the selfishness, and brings your requests to God.  We need to stop making it so complicated and simplify it back to how it was when we were kids and the bottom line is, we need to pray more. 

2)    Ask specifically – We need to stop praying vague prayers for God’s will to be done.  Ask God specifically for what you want, and then if you want to add at the end a recognition of wanting the prayer to line up with God’s will, that’s perfect.  But don’t fall into the trap of beginning your prayers with “Your will be done” because then you are tempted to edit your prayers and never pray your heart because you figure God’s just going to do what He’s going to do anyway.  God does hear our prayers and answers them!   

3)    Ask big –  Elijah prayed for no rain for 3 years so that King Ahab and the Israelites would turn back to God.  Joshua prayed for the sun to stand still so that the Israelites would win the battle on their way to the Promised Land. 

 What ENORMOUS things has God put on your heart to accomplish for his glory?  Don’t dismiss those dreams because they seem unattainable; pray for God to do the heavy lifting so he can be glorified and his kingdom can advance. 

 One caveat for my message today, I don’t want you to hear this message and think I’m giving you license to just pray for sunny Saturdays, help to find your keys, and all green lights on the way to work.  While yes, you can pray these things and God may answer them, the bigger challenge for you today is to pray for so much more.  To pray for lost people to be found, for mercy and justice, and for his kingdom to advance here on earth.  

Conclusion

Our prayer life is a reflection of our view of God. 

• If we pray only tiny prayers, we make God small. 
• If we pray enormous prayers that will change the world, we see God as a God who is willing and able to change the world! 
• If we ask God for personal requests, we reveal that we actually have relationship with him and trust him with the intimate details of our lives.
• Yet, if we only ask God to do things to make our lives better, easier, and happier, we turn God into our own magic genie in a bottle
• God wants to be so much more than that.  He wants to answer our prayers, how he sees fit, so that we become more like Jesus and so that he is glorified in all the world. 

So, will you join with us in enlarging our prayers.  Let’s pray not only for lost keys, but for lost people to be found.  Let’s pray not only for our own healing, but for healing in our community through justice and restoration.  Yes, God wants us to be willing to bring any request to him, but he also wants us to start thinking like him about the big picture of his kingdom advancing and his name being exalted through our requests for him to move on this earth.   

We may not ask for the sun to stand still in the sky, but if that’s what it took to bring a piece of heaven to earth, are you willing to ask him?

Prayer Defined

We are kicking off a brand new series of messages we are calling “Dialogue: Recovering the Lost Art of Communicating with God.” Over the next several weeks we want to take a look at how we communicate with God. I think we all bring certain thoughts and ideas about prayer with us, things we have been taught or have heard through the years, passages of the Bible that come to mind just by saying the word, but I want to start by just getting us all on the same page. What do we mean when we say the word prayer?

As the word “dialogue” implies, this is about how we speak to God, but also how we listen to God when he speaks. Now I realize even in that statement, there can be some confusion. We understand the “talking to God” part. Many of us grew up learning something about prayer. We learned a meal prayer: “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food. Ahhhhh-men,” or the less reverent version, “Good bread, Good meat. Good God. Let’s eat,” or “Rub a dub dub, thank you for the grub.”

Or maybe you learned the bedtime prayer. “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake. I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Which leads me to question who came up with this prayer! And if you prayed it, did you ever sleep? Weren’t you always worried about dying in your sleep? Seriously. The sentiment is good, but I can certainly understand how anyone who prayed that every night as a child might need therapy in being able to get a good night’s sleep!  So, we have an understanding of talking to (or maybe it’s better described as talking at) God.

But God speaks? How? When? Audibly? How do we know? And what about times where God appears to be silent? These are all questions we will look at in the coming weeks.

Prayer is more than just words. It is communion with God.  It is an opportunity to live where the kingdom of God overlaps this world, to touch heaven and bring it to earth. It is a place where we can discover the heart of a God who loves the world and join him in his work in the world. 

Too often we have reduced prayer to God being the genie in the bottle and our words are what we use to rub the lamp to get the genie to do what we want. We have used prayer as a place to bring our laundry list of wants. It is more than that.  Prayer is more than just a means to an end. It is more than just trying to get things from God.  It is trying to get more of God himself.

Prayer is so simple an act that even a child can do it, but so powerful that it can change the world. But often, the waters get muddied when we bring in ideas from our culture. We are told things like “prayer is an opportunity to get in tune with oneself, the inner truth that lies within.” I’m not exactly sure what this is supposed to accomplish, but I know enough about the inner workings of my own life to see the futility in this exercise.

Or we hear those that mock prayer and doubt its usefulness, so we become a practical deist and even though we might pray at times, we view it as nothing more than tossing a message in a bottle into the ocean. It might reach someone somewhere, but more than likely it won’t.

But I really like what author and Theology Professor David Wells wrote when he said that prayer is a refusal to accept things the way they are, a refusal to accept the status quo. He writes that prayer is “rebellion—rebellion against the status quo, the state of the world in its sin and fallenness. It is the absolute and undying refusal to accept as normal what is completely abnormal. It is the rejection of every agenda, every scheme, every opinion that clashes with the norms that God originally established.”

The Heart of Prayer

Prayer is a conversation with God. But even more than that, it is an encounter with God. Now I don’t know about you, but even bringing up the issue of prayer makes me a little uncomfortable. I grew up around church. I always heard about prayer. I do pray. But all too often I have felt like something is missing when I pray. Growing up singing hymns in church, we sang songs like “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” And I thought, an hour of prayer?! An HOUR OF PRAYER! Seriously? Who’s got time for that?

Or I read quotes from people like Martin Luther.  You might have heard of him; he led the Protestant Reformation; a few churches around the world bear his name. He is quoted as saying, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” Three hours? And I think to myself, “what does he know that I am missing?”

I think I am probably not alone in this struggle. Maybe some of you feel the same way. In our hectic world, I feel like the best I can do most days is a quick check-in with God. After all, we live in a twitter world. 140 characters or less. And how often could that be used to describe our prayers? Can I get a #Amen?

Why? Why does this attitude seem to be the prevailing mindset of Christians today when it comes to prayer? What are we missing? Why don’t we believe like Martin Luther that the more hectic our lives are, the more we need to pray?

Jesus on Prayer

In Luke’s gospel in the New Testament, he spends a considerable amount of time, in fact more than any of the other gospels, writing about Jesus’ prayer life. He records two similar parables, two stories that Jesus told about what our attitude should be when it comes to prayer. And the significance of these stories is that what we believe about prayer, its importance and necessity in our lives, will determine how we pray and can even influence the effectiveness of our prayers.

Scripture

We find these stories in Luke 11:1-8 and Luke 18:1-8.

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.”

He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“‘Father,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins,

for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.

And lead us not into temptation.'”

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, because a friend of mind on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.’

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.’ 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.” —Luke 11:1-8

And story #2, the Parable of the Persistent Widow

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.  He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men.  And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

“For some time he refused.  But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!'”

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.  And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?  I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.  However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”  —Luke 18: 1-8

Our Problem with Prayer

These stories reveal what I think are some problems we have when it comes to prayer. The first issue is that we lack persistence. We are too busy. We think prayer is mentioning something once and moving on. In our microwave, instant everything world, if we don’t see or hear something right away, we just move on. To be honest, we give up too easily. Because when we do this, we are really doing nothing more than playing at prayer. And as one commentator put it, “We must not play at prayer, but must show persistence if we do not receive the answer immediately.” (Morris TNTC 213)

Another problem with our prayer is that we aren’t helpless enough. Both of these stories show people who cannot help themselves and must turn to another to get what they need. We are too self-sufficient. From birth we are taught to take care of ourselves, to depend on no one. And prayer goes directly against that.

Prayer reveals a deep need.  It reveals our dependence on God. It requires humility. Too often we walk around with the attitude of “We don’t need no stinkin’ help.” Our self-sufficient attitude and pride prevent us from reaching out and seeking help even from God.

The third problem I think we see here is probably the biggest. It is one I believe neutralizes more people from praying than anything else. We are convinced it really doesn’t matter. We say to ourselves, “Why pray anyway? God is just going to do what he wants to do anyway and so what I pray doesn’t matter at all.”

And if this attitude doesn’t completely keep us from praying, it reduces prayer to nothing more than an obligation or chore to be checked off the “What Good Christians Do” list. It removes any passion and urgency from our prayer lives. Does prayer actually change anything? Well, there are two extreme views here. And as usual, I think truth lies somewhere between the two.

Two Extreme Views

One view that is held by those in what’s known as “the prosperity gospel movement,” or “name it and claim it,” believe that God is at our whim.  Whatever we say, he must do. Whatever we ask, he must give. And we certainly read things in the Bible that could give us this impression. Just read a little further in Luke 11 and we see Jesus himself saying, “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. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” We also read in James, “You do not have because you do not ask God.” So, we certainly see where this idea could come from.

But on the flip side we have those that believe God is sovereign and will do whatever he wants and we have nothing to say about it. Verses like Psalm 115:3, “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him,”  or Philippians 2:13, “for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”

And somewhere in between, we find verses that talk about praying God’s will. First John 5:14, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”

So, what is the answer? Do our prayers matter?

I think that through these stories we’ve read today, and backed by the rest of Scripture, we see the answer is a resounding “yes.”

Is God in control? Yes. Can our prayers influence things? Yes. Why else would Jesus tell these two stories? Both are true and they are not mutually exclusive. As one pastor I read this week put it, prayer runs on more paradoxical principles than most things. For some reason, God has chosen to empower us. He desires to communicate with us. And because he wants us to be dependent of him, he allows us the opportunity to pray and influence what is happening around us. Now, that doesn’t mean we get everything we ask for. No. That would be silly and dangerous.  Just like our response when own kids ask for things that we know wouldn’t be best for them, God does filter our prayers when needed to make sure we don’t get ahead of ourselves.

As Pastor Tim Keller put it, “Prayer does change things, but God still has control and won’t let us screw things up.” And isn’t that what a good, loving parent who cares for his children should do?

God invites us to be a part of his work in the world. He invites us to pray and have input in what is going on, not because he needs our help, but because of the relationship he desires with us. He doesn’t want us to be robots or bystanders, but to have a real genuine relationship with him based on love.

So why do we need to pray?

Why Pray

Our prayer is a reflection our faith. If we don’t trust God, we won’t pray. If we don’t believe God can do anything about it, we won’t pray. If we think our prayers are ineffective, we won’t pray. But when we live in a dynamic passionate relationship with God, we will be passionate prayers seeking God.

We pray because of our dependence upon God. Any time we think we don’t need him, we are in trouble. As we saw in the story, the woman’s only asset was persistence. She had nothing else. The man’s cupboards were bare. He had nothing else. Both of them showed shameless audacity in their persistence. Our helplessness or dependency on God should drive us to our knees in prayer. Prayer is a constant reminder of our need for God.  

Prayer reminds us of who God is. These stories show people who finally relent to the constant nagging of another. The one story had the unjust judge. Does that mean God is like that? Not at all. In fact, just the opposite. It is a reminder that if even an evil, unjust judge will hear the cry of a widow and respond, how much more will a compassionate God hear the cries of his people?

Prayer aligns us with God.  It is an opportunity to align ourselves with God. Sometimes we don’t know what to pray. How do we know if our prayer is God’s will or if it is selfish? This is the question we answer next week, so come back.

Prayer involves us in the work of God. This is the grand invitation of God to us to be involved in what he is doing in the world. He doesn’t have to invite us. He chooses to. And prayer is the starting point in joining God in what he is doing. As Dallas Willard put it, prayer is “talking to God about what we are doing together.”

Prayer can change things. It has an impact. Sometimes we get to see the results of our prayers and sometimes we don’t. But Scripture is clear, we need to pray because sometimes God is using our prayers to move in ways around us.

Conclusion

So what do you believe about prayer? Do you see it as a necessity in your life? Or as a chore to be done because you feel like you are supposed to? We need to see the necessity of prayer, understanding that we will only see prayer as necessary if we believe it actually changes things.  We must realize prayer is necessary and the world needs us to pray.

In his book, “The Divine Conspiracy,” Dallas Willard writes, “God’s ‘response’ to our prayers is not a charade. He does not pretend that he is answering our prayer when he is only doing what he was going to do anyway. Our requests really do make a difference in what God does or does not do. The idea that everything would happen exactly as it does regardless of whether we pray or not is a specter that haunts the minds of many who sincerely profess belief in God. It makes prayer psychologically impossible, replacing it with dead ritual at best. And of course God does not respond to this. You wouldn’t either.” It is time for the children of God to pray like children of God should: with passion and persistence, knowing that we are touching heaven and at the same time changing earth.

You may want to start a prayer journal.  We are asking that you join us in keeping our prayer lives. A journal doesn’t make our prayers more effective. It is simply a tool to help keep us on track, to record our thoughts, prayers, thankfulness, confessions, and prayers for others. It also is a place to record what God is doing in our lives and how he is speaking to us.

The staff at Ashworth Road are convinced that if you begin to put what we talk about into practice, you will see radical changes in your spiritual journey. And when that happens, we want to know about it. We want to be able to share your story with others, because we know that your story will encourage others. So, please feel free to share it with us.

As I close, I leave you with this final thought. . . we also pray because we see it modeled for us in Jesus. Jesus, fully God and fully man, able to perform miracles and forgive people of their sins, saw prayer as a necessary part of his time on earth. If he couldn’t do what he did without it, what makes you think you can fulfill God’s purpose for your life without it?