Sunday
Morning Bible Study
October
29, 2006
Introduction
Some quotes on prayer:
Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?
Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983)
Prayer is the most important thing in my life. If I should neglect prayer
for a single day, I should lose a great deal of the fire of faith.
Martin Luther (1483–1546)
I'd rather be able to pray than be a great preacher; Jesus Christ never
taught his disciples how to preach, but only how to pray.
D. L. Moody
The prayer of the feeblest saint on earth who lives in the Spirit and keeps
right with God is a terror to Satan. The very powers of darkness are paralyzed
by prayer; no spiritual séance can succeed in the presence of a humble praying
saint. No wonder Satan tries to keep our minds fussy in active work till we
cannot think in prayer.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)
1. Peace and prayer
Sometimes life seems to be filled with struggles and conflicts.
Illustration
As the Lone Ranger and Tonto were riding along towards the north, they
spotted a war party of about 50 Apaches coming at them. They turned south, but
another war party appeared. They turned east and met another party of 100
braves. They turned west as their last remaining hope and saw a party of 500. The
Lone Ranger turned to his friend and said, “Well, faithful friend, this is the
end, there’s not much we can do.” Tonto looked back at the Lone Ranger. “What
you mean WE, white man?”
It’s bad enough when the struggles are with the people around us, but it’s
even worse when the conflicts and warfare are going on inside our very hearts.
James writes a bit about prayer.
Tradition tells us that the skin on James’ knees was as hard as a
camel’s because of his constant praying.
He writes,
(James 4:1-3 NKJV) Where
do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for
pleasure that war in your members? {2} You lust and do not have. You murder and
covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do
not ask. {3} You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may
spend it on your pleasures.
James says that conflict and turmoil come from our “desires for pleasure”,
our “lusts”. We get our word “hedonism”
from the Greek word translated “pleasure” here.
James makes a connection between these strong desires and conflict.
Conflicts come because we want something and we aren’t getting it. James isn’t just talking about sexual
desires, but all kinds of desires. Some
people desire respect, others desire power, others desire material possessions.
And somehow these conflicts are a reflection on our prayer life.
We are either not praying for the thing we desire, or we are praying the
wrong thing about the desire.
Do you have conflict in your life?
Is it conflict with another person?
Is it tension inside of you?
Have you thought of praying for the situation?
If you are praying, could it be possible that you’re
praying for the wrong thing, or you are praying for the wrong reasons?
In contrast with this, Paul teaches us that peace comes when we do pray.
(Phil 4:6-7 NKJV) Be
anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with
thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; {7} and the peace of God,
which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus.
Paul says that we ought to deal with the anxieties and conflicts of life by
praying. And if we are praying
correctly, then we will experience God’s supernatural peace in the middle of
that situation.
An important key to receiving God’s peace in prayer is learning to pray
with thanksgiving.
I think that thanksgiving is a reflection of how much we’re willing to
trust God with the situation. If I am
putting the situation squarely into God’s hands, and I truly believe God will
do what’s best, then it’s easy to be thankful.
And that’s when the peace comes.
Sometimes my anxieties over situations can get a bit obsessive. It’s hard to stop worrying. It might be a situation that I’m constantly
working through in my head. It might be
one of those arguments you have in your head with a person that’s not in the
room with you.
I’m learning that each time I am aware of the anxiety, I need to lift the
situation up to God again in prayer.
Don’t just worry about it, pray about it. There is a difference.
2. Powerful Prayer
What does it take to pray powerful prayers?
Illustration
Three pastors were talking about prayer in general and the appropriate and
effective positions for prayer. As they were talking, a telephone repairman was
working on the phone system in the background. One pastor shared that he felt
the key was in the hands. He always held his hands together and pointed them
upward as a form of symbolic worship. The second suggested that real prayer was
conducted on your knees. The third suggested that they both had it wrong—the
only position worth its salt was to pray while stretched out flat on your face.
By this time the phone man couldn’t stay out of the conversation any
longer. He interjected, “I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was
while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended forty
feet above the ground.”
(James 5:16-18 NKJV) Confess
your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be
healed. The effective, fervent prayer
of a righteous man avails much.
effective, fervent – energeo –
to be operative, be at work; we could translate this, “the active prayer” or
“the working prayer” or “the effective prayer”
avails – ischuo – to be
strong; to have power
We live in a world with powerful weapons.
Men no longer fight battles with swords, not even just guns. Mankind has continued to develop stronger,
more powerful weapons to fight with.
But could it be that we as believers might have the most powerful weapon of
all?
The U.S.
military would love to launch a cruise missile at Osama bin Laden. But they don’t know where to find him. But you can affect bin Laden from your own
prayer closet.
R. A. Torrey, at the center of the Azusa Street
revival a hundred years ago, wrote,
We are too busy to pray, and so we
are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity but we accomplish
little; many services but few conversions; much machinery but few results.
righteous man – not a
perfect man, there are no perfect men.
This is a man who is right with God.
Sin harms our communication with God.
Confessing our sins and turning from our sins not only brings
forgiveness, but affects what happens when we pray as well.
Share the Gospel
{17} Elijah was a man with
a nature like ours, and he prayed
earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for
three years and six months. {18} And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain,
and the earth produced its fruit.
a nature like ours – homoiopathes
– suffering the like with another, of like feelings or affections
We might look at some of the heroes of the Bible and think that we could
never be like those “supermen”. But with
the exception of Jesus, every person that God ever used in the Bible was a
normal human being just like you or me.
We can’t look at how God used Elijah and say that we could never do
that. He was just like us.
prayed earnestly – the Greek is literally, “He prayed with prayer”.
When Elijah prayed, he prayed. He
didn’t just repeat meaningless words. He
didn’t just pray memorized prayers. He
prayed. He talked with God.
The way James writes also is intended to describe “intensity”, he really prayed, he prayed “fervently”, he
prayed “earnestly”
Illustration
More quotes on prayer:
“Fluency is a questionable endowment, especially when it
is not accompanied with the weight of thought and depth of feeling. Some
brethren pray by the yard, but true prayer is measured by weight – not by
length. A single groan before God may have more fullness of prayer in it than a
fine oration of great length.”
- Spurgeon on Prayer, A 30-day devotional treasury, Day
15.
“Some people's prayers need to be cut off at both ends and set on fire in
the middle.”
Dwight Lyman Moody
(1837–1899)
There are times when I’m praying that I know I’m just spinning my
wheels. My heart isn’t in praying, my
heart is anxious to get on with my day.
But there are times when I am actually spending time praying, asking
God, seeking His help.
“Intensity” doesn’t mean “louder”. It
speaks of sincerity of heart, not necessarily intensity of emotion.
God wants to do powerful things through our prayers if we will let
Him. We need to learn to pray “weighty” and
“fervent” prayers.
3. Pride and prayer
Isaiah has an interesting prophecy about the ministry of Jesus, the coming
Messiah:
(Isa 42:1-8 NKJV) "Behold!
My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! I have put My
Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. {2} He will not
cry out, nor raise His voice, Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.
{3} A bruised reed He will not break, And smoking flax He will not quench; He
will bring forth justice for truth. {4} He will not fail nor be discouraged,
Till He has established justice in the earth; And the coastlands shall wait for
His law."
This is a great description of the earthly ministry of Jesus. It gives us a
taste of the heart of God, the compassion of God. Jesus came to save people,
not crush them. God goes on to speak instruction to the Messiah:
{5} Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched
them out, Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, Who gives
breath to the people on it, And spirit to those who walk on it: {6} "I,
the LORD, have called You in righteousness, And will hold Your hand; I will
keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the Gentiles,
{7} To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the prison, Those who sit
in darkness from the prison house.
This is what God does for people. This is why we must reach out to people –
because they are like prisoners, held captive by Satan to do his will. This is
what Jesus is all about. And then God goes on to say:
{8} I am the LORD, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another, Nor My praise to carved
images.
It’s an interesting principle – that God has no intention of sharing His
glory with anyone else.
Why is that? Is God insecure? Does God get bothered when other people get a
little well deserved credit in life?
Not at all. The issue is not God’s insecurity. The issue is making it clear
where the help really comes from.
God is the one who has the answers for the world around us. Not you and I.
God is the one who can heal a broken heart. God is the one who can give
hope to the one in despair. God is the one who can help a sick marriage. Only
God.
And I think we need to make it clear to people that God is the one with the
answers. We want people to come to our church, I think we have a pretty cool
little church. But people don’t need Calvary Fullerton, people need Jesus.
We need to make sure that the spotlight stays on Jesus at all times. Jesus said,
(Mat 5:16
NKJV) "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works and glorify your Father in
heaven.
He also taught:
(John 15:8 NKJV) "By
this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My
disciples.
But how is God glorified? What is this “fruit” we’re supposed to be
producing? Look at the verse right before this one…
(John 15:7 NKJV) "If
you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and
it shall be done for you.
I’d like to suggest to you that there’s a connection between prayer and the
glory of God.
When I don’t pray, and good things happen in my life, I can tend to take
credit for the good things that happen.
Sometimes I work extra hard at something, and I feel
inside that I deserve a little credit for the thing that happened.
The danger of not praying is that I can tend to take
credit for the things that God is graciously doing in my life.
Even when I do pray, I find that I still want to take credit. Except it
comes a little more subtly, I want people to know that it was MY prayers that
caused this thing to happen. I want credit from people for my prayers.
Illustration:
President Reagan used to have this sign on his desk:
“There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go
if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”
Would you mind if God got all the credit for the things that happen through
your life? Would you mind if God got all the credit for answering your prayers?
4. The Holy Spirit and prayer
Over the last few weeks, there is a thread in prayer that I’ve kept putting
off. We passed by it when we were
finishing Ephesians:
(Eph 6:18
NKJV) praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and
supplication for all the saints;
We skipped past it when I taught on prayer from the book of Luke:
(Luke 11:13 NKJV) "If you then, being evil, know
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to those
who ask Him!"
I see it hinted at in the writings of Jude:
(Jude 1:20-21 NKJV) But you, beloved, building yourselves up on
your most holy faith, praying in the
Holy Spirit, {21} keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy
of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
A vital component of prayer is the work of the Holy Spirit.
What does it mean to “pray in the Holy Spirit”?
1. It may mean using the gift of
tongues in prayer. You can read through
1Corinthians 14 to see how Paul connects prayer and the Holy Spirit with the
gift of tongues. The idea is that
sometimes when we don’t know what to pray, a person with the gift of tongues
might pray in tongues, asking God to guide their prayers.
Illustration
Grampa was going by his little granddaughter’s room one night when he saw
her kneeling beside her bed, head bowed and hands folded, repeating the
alphabet. “What are you doing?” he asked
her. She explained, “I’m saying my prayers, but I couldn’t think of just what I
wanted to say. So I’m just saying all the letters, and God can put them
together however He thinks best.”
Praying in tongues is a little like that.
But I think the work of the Spirit in prayer goes beyond the gift of
tongues.
2. It means allowing the Holy Spirit
to guide and influence your prayers.
(Rom 8:26-27 NKJV) Likewise
the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray
for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered.
The key to prayer is knowing how to pray according to the will of God
(1John 5:14-15)
One fellow (Archbishop Trench) wrote, “Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance;
it is laying hold of his highest willingness.”
The problem is when we don’t know what God’s will is in a particular
situation. We don’t know how to pray.
The Holy Spirit knows how to pray for us – with groanings that can’t be
uttered. By it’s definition, this has to
be something different than tongues, which are uttered.
{27} Now He who searches the hearts (God the Father) knows
what the mind of the Spirit is, because He (The Holy Spirit) makes
intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
The Holy Spirit wants to be an active part of our prayer life.
Part of the struggle in prayer is not just getting things off my chest, but
actively listening for the prompting of the Holy Spirit while I’m praying.
The Holy Spirit can give you insight into how to pray for
people and situations.
The Holy Spirit can help you “tweak” your prayers,
changing or shifting the emphasis of your prayers.
This is why it’s vital that we not only spend time
praying, but also reading God’s Word.
One of the greatest ways that God wants to influence your prayers will
come as you are reading the Word.
When you are praying for people, with their faces are
fresh on your heart, and then you open your Bible and read, you will often hear
God speaking to you, teaching you, encouraging you about the things you’ve been
talking to Him about.
Illustration
Prayer is not an argument with God to persuade him to move
things our way, but an exercise by which we are enabled by his Spirit to move
ourselves his way.
Leonard Ravenhill
(1867–1942)