Prayer: The Power of Prayer

Okay, tonight we're looking at part 16, the power of prayer, and just by word of review, we've examined many different aspects of prayer in this study, all different kinds of ways of looking at it, but early on we asked and answered two particular questions.

First, if God is sovereign, then why pray? We spent a good deal of time on that. Second one was, does prayer really change things? And we're kind of picking up. We answered that weeks ago, but the conclusion picks up on that same topic again.

So tonight we're going to give a further answer to question two, and we're going to conclude by studying prayer under this heading of the power of prayer. I love the way, how many people have read R .C. Sproul's book?

The one on prayer. Oh, this is a good group tonight. Okay, in his book, as you all know, I mean, Sproul is one of my favorite teachers, and he has a unique way of putting things forth. So what he does in the book is he takes the style of the author of Hebrews, in Hebrews 11, remember, by faith Abraham, by faith Sarah, by faith Moses, and he does the same thing, only he switches it around and uses prayer.

So by prayer, everything in blue here, that's a quotation from his book. By prayer, Esau's heart was changed towards Jacob, so that they met in a friendly rather than hostile manner, and that's in Genesis 32.

All right, by prayer, the prayer of Moses, God brought the plagues upon Egypt and then removed them again, Exodus 7 to 11. Is there ringing a bell with Hebrews 11, by faith? By prayer, Joshua made the sun stand still.

By prayer, when Samson was ready to perish with thirst, God brought water out of a hollow place for his sustenance, Judges 15. By prayer, the strength of Samson was restored. He pulled down the temple of Dagon on the Philistines, so that those whom he killed as he died were more than all he had killed in his life, Judges 16.

By prayer, Elijah held back the rains for three and a half years, then by prayer he caused it to rain again, 1 Kings 17 and 18. By the prayer of Hezekiah, God sent an angel and killed in one night 185 ,000 men in Sennacherib's army, 2 Kings 19.

By the prayer of Asa, God confounded the army of Zerah, 2 Chronicles 14. And then what he does is he continues in the same vein of Hebrews 11, and he says, time would fail me to tell of Abraham, who prayed for and received his son at the age of a hundred years, and Moses, who received help at the Red Sea, and the Israelites, who were delivered from Egypt after much prayer, and David, who escaped the treachery of Saul by prayer, and Solomon, who received great wisdom as a result of prayer, and Daniel, who was able to interpret dreams after prayer.

People were delivered from peril, healed from diseases, saw loved ones cured, and witnessed innumerable miracles as the result of fervent prayer. This style really makes it, drives it home, doesn't it?

You can see that's why I use this for the topic of the power of prayer, because prayer really is powerful. So based upon the list that R .C. Sproul, which is not an exhaustive list, we can agree with James then, who said this, the effect of prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

So to answer the question again, does prayer really change things? Prayer accomplishes much. Then we have several more verses, and these verses, I'm putting these verses in because they are often misquoted or taken out of context.

Matthew 7, 7 and 8, asking it will be given to you, seeking you will find, knocking it will be opened unto you. For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

What is, what do you think is the way that is mishandled or misappropriated? What, reading that, how do you think people could misuse it?

I can see people using that to say you have to, it's up to you, you know, you've.

Got to do these things, okay? Sarah? God will give me the dream Cadillac I want if I was you.

Could everybody hear what she said? Say it a little bit louder. Yeah, this is used by the word of faith movement a lot, you know, to say look, all you got to do is ask and you're going to get it, okay?

And again in Matthew 18, 19, again I say to you that if two of you agree on anything about, on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. You can see the same propensity there.

People throw these out, say all you got to do is ask and get your friend. Two of you agree on it? God's got to, all right? And what do they do? They make God seem like he's a genie in a bottle, and he's at our beck and call.

Matthew 21, 22, and all things you ask in prayer, believing you will receive. Well, I believe. How come I didn't receive? You can see where the problem comes in, if you're not careful in how to interpret these verses.

What's the problem? These promises are conditional. They're not unequivocal promises. They are conditional, and the Scripture clearly teaches that. That's what we're going to look at. Here's the verse again.

Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. All things you ask in prayer, believing you will receive.

These two are conditional. Those promises are conditional. They're not unconditional promises. And here's some of the conditions. John 9, 31. We know that God does not listen to sinners. So if you're a sinner, can anybody just say, God, I want that?

No. But if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Now, even that can be misconstrued. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

So you see, you have to be a worshiper of God. You have to ask in his name. And then John 15, 7. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you. Now we have another aspect of it.

What does it mean to abide in him? And we'll look at that in a few minutes. First John 3, 22. Whatever we ask, we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. You've seen a pattern being built up here?

It's not an unconditional. It's not, I got my prayer bottle, and I just rub it, and poof, out come the answers to my prayers. First John 5, 14. This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears.

Now what does that mean? Notice the various conditions for prayers being answered. Mere asking is not enough. It's the start. You must ask, and that's what those verses are saying. Ask and you shall receive.

You have to start there by asking. But we are told to pray, notice in one of the verses, pray in his name. What does that mean? That means that the request must be according to his will, and in line with his nature and character.

What does it mean to pray in the name of Jesus, other than what I just wrote down? What does that mean? Does it mean we're gonna pray here, and then when I close, I'm gonna go, in Jesus name, amen. Now he has to answer my prayer.

Is that.

What that means? We'd say like obedience to his will over what it is that we may desire. It's an outright surrender to what his will would be over ours, right?

Yes. Oh, so, yeah, for him. What? Oh, sorry. No, isn't it acknowledging like how we need his intercession by the Father? Yeah. Well, along with that, as I was thinking about what Maria.

Says, but also looking to glorify him in our prayers that we're basically saying we want him to receive the glory and the honor for answering the prayers that we've put before him.

Okay. How did Jesus pray? Like, will you obey him? Yeah. To pray according to the name of Jesus, according to his will, is to pray the prayers that Jesus would pray. That's why you say that it needs to be in line with his nature and character.

So, as we're praying, and I don't want to use the initial, what would Jesus do? I don't want to use that. That gives the wrong connotation. But we need to examine the scripture and pray like Jesus. And one of the first lessons was how should we pray?

Did Jesus ever tell us how we should pray? Where? Just don't tell me in the Bible. Matthew 6. Sure. That's, remember, we looked at, we spent a whole lesson just on that one portion of scripture. He says, when you pray, don't pray like the Gentiles.

Don't pray like the heathens. Pray, when you pray, pray like this. Okay. And then he gives us what the priority of our prayer life should be. And keeping in mind that Christ, when he prayed, said, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.

And that's one of the things that is extremely important. Praying in the will of God means, and praying according to his name, means praying the very prayers that he would pray, but in submission to him and not according to our own motives.

When we pray, there must be reverence for God and the assurance that prayer is according to his nature and will. That's what we're looking at. There's got to be a reverence for God. Have you ever seen some of these televangelists praying, literally putting their fist up and demanding God to do something?

That's blasphemy. All right. There's always has to be a reverence for God. One of the lessons that we had, if you remember, was one of the purposes for prayer is to keep us humble, to acknowledge that all gifts come from God.

Even the breath that we breathe, everything that we have is a gift from him. And he desires us to pray. Well, I'm going to get into that a little bit. I'm getting ahead of myself. We must be in communion with God.

You can't just, you know, go and live your life all week long, then Sunday come and order some prayers and say, oh, you have to answer these prayers. I'm asking in your name. We must be in communion with God.

In other words, you have to be working out your sanctification with fear and trembling. As you continue to strive to become like Christ, you will start praying like Christ and praying in his will and according to his nature and the things that he would pray for.

But there's also, even when we have that done, there are certain things that are hindrances to prayer that are listed right in the scripture. I'm going to give a couple of them. Asking for things with wrong motives.

James 4 .3, you ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your pleasures. Sorry, Sarah, there goes your dream Cadillac, right? Yeah, wrong motives. Why am I asking this for this?

You know, deliver us from evil. Is that a good one? Yeah, that's a good one. All right. Give me, you know, my Mercedes Benz. No. Oh, John doesn't. I wouldn't buy one after John anyway. Another thing is asking for things that would not be good for us.

God is wise enough that he will not answer all of our prayers, even if we're praying with the right motives and whatnot, because it may not be good for us. The classic example of this is Moses. Remember when he was up on the mountain and he prays, God, let me see your face.

And what did God say? No, no, no. Why? Because anyone who sees my face will die. So the answer to that prayer, and here's Moses, a prophet of God, asked a prayer, and was the prayer of his heart, was it a good one?

Yes, he wanted to be close to, he thought that would be good for him to be close to God. But if motive was wrong and it would not be good for him, so God said no. We're praying while violating a biblical responsibility.

First Peter 3 .7, you husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way as with someone weaker, since she is a woman, and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

There's a message for all of us who are married. Take care of your wives. You're not doing what's right by your wives, your prayers might be hindered. We're praying while harboring sin in your heart. It's an easy one.

It's amazing how people, all Christians believe in the sovereignty of God. They may have a poor view of it, but they believe in the sovereignty of God, and yet they think they can come to him with sin hidden in their heart.

Matthew 5 .23 -24, therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, then come and present your offering.

If we're not coming with pure hearts and clean hands, we have no expectation that our prayers will be answered. Intercessory prayers, now we've kind of kept putting this one aside, you know, and covering all the other aspects of prayer.

Remember, there's different aspects of prayer, different types of prayers, and we use the acronym ACTS, remember? Prayers of Adoration, Prayers of Confession, Prayers of Thanksgiving, and then we come now to the last supplication, or intercessory prayers.

Here's where we spend time praying for others. Now in the old covenant, the job of intercessory praying was given to the priesthood that was left for them. In the new covenant, Jesus became our high priest and paved the way for the priesthood of all believers.

That's a precious doctrine that comes out of the Reformation, comes out of the Bible, but we recover it, we capture it in the Reformation. The priesthood of all believers, we don't need, the only mediator between us and God is Jesus Christ.

We don't have to see a priest, you don't have to come and see an elder of the church. Wherever you are, you can get on your knees, you can pray, and your prayer is guided to heaven by the Holy Spirit, and if you don't know what to say, he'll say it for you.

He gives us an example of intercessory praying in his high priestly prayer in John 17, and that's a great place to look. If you ever really want to get into what does a biblical prayer look like, go to John 17.

Now, of course, there's some specific aspects of that because Jesus was our high priest, but the example of intercessory prayer is all throughout John 17, but he also gives us a more specific example and an interesting one in Luke when he prays for Peter.

Remember this one. He says, Simon, Simon, Peter, Peter, behold, Satan has demanded permission to save you like wheat, and what does he say? Does he say, don't worry about it, I'll prevent him? Is that what he says?

No, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail, and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. What do you think of that? Let me hear some comments on that first, but I've prayed for you.

Satan's going to sift you like wheat. I didn't tell him no. I'm praying for you. Go ahead.

My mind instantly thinks that like Joe, like Satan appears before God and takes away from Joe. It's kind of an interesting notion that Satan does that not just once, and so that idea where he's admitting that he hasn't said no, but that he's praying for his.

Faith, it's just…. Yeah, it gives us a good example of how we should pray, but it also gives us another perspective in that just because you ask Christ, you ask God to deliver you from evil, doesn't mean that he's not going to let something bad happen to you, yeah.

And although obviously Peter's denial was bad, it's what Peter needed to go through. Yeah. Because once he turns again, he's able to strengthen the brothers, so because Peter went through that experience, he's able to take that and further the kingdom through that, through what he learned through.

That experience. It really did humble Peter, didn't it? Peter was a different man after he had denied Christ than he was before, okay? And yeah, Maria, go ahead. Okay, John?

One of my favorite passages, I think it's in Mark, where when Jesus appears to the ladies and he says, tell my brothers, end Peter, because we all know Peter was probably forgetting, I turned my back on him, I'm finished, you know?

And they said, no, Peter, specifically he said, you. Praise God. Maybe like when in Romans it says that.

God works out all things for our good, that even in like terrible sin, like denying Jesus, Jesus is still praying for us that it will even work out for good better than if it didn't happen.

Yeah. We're able to strengthen each other.

Yeah, even when evil befalls us, because of that promise in Romans 8 .28, he will work it out for our benefit, and also for the benefit of the whole body. Notice he says here, and somebody hit on it, that when you have turned, strengthen your brothers.

He's going to use it, Peter, for the good. There's a couple of other instances where that same thing is said. Psalm 73, remember Asaph? The psalm of Asaph. It's one of my favorite psalms. And Asaph is looking around the world, and he said, wow, evil is prospering, and here I'm trying to live a good life, and I'm getting nowhere, you know?

And he says, my foot almost slipped. He says, I almost lost faith, right, until something happened. He says, until I entered the sanctuary. Then I perceived their end. He got the perspective, and then he could teach others.

Same thing with David in Psalm 51, when he turned from his denial. All right, what does he do? He says, now I can teach others, and that's something that we need to keep in mind as well. Jesus interceded on behalf of Peter, whom Christ knew was going to fall into sin, and we are called to be intercessors in our prayer life, just as Jesus prayed for Peter.

That's why David in Psalm 51 says at the end, do good to Zion, and you're a good pleasure, because he's talking about his sin, and he wants God to turn it around.

Hebrews 4, 14 and 16. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things, as we are yet without sin.

Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in a time of need. I mean, that's just such a precious promise that we have, why we can come to Christ with everything.

He knows it all. He's been tempted, and in fact, I figure which one of the Puritans that I was reading, and he talked about, you know, because Christ couldn't fall, you know, some people say, well, that's not a real temptation, and he says, no, because of his deity, it was more heinous to be tempted in that way, not that he would fall, but it was more heinous to him because he was more sensitive to it.

So, he really understands the temptation. And then Sproul makes an important observation in the conclusion of his book, Does Prayer Really Change Things? He says this, prayer requires structure, not at the expense of spontaneity.

There must be order and the procedure must be somewhat regulated, however, room still exists for individual self-expression within the limits of reverence and order. And I think that's a great summation of prayer that it is still an act of worship.

It needs to be guided by the truth of God's Word and not runaway emotions. So, why do we pray? And here we're getting down to the nitty-gritty. We pray because God commanded it. Okay, that's it, the end of the lesson.

That should be enough. And because he is glorified when we pray. We pray because it prepares our hearts for what we will receive from him. We pray because much is accomplished by prayer. We pray to adore God, to praise him, to express our wonder at his majesty, his sovereignty, and his mighty acts.

This is somewhat of a summary of what we've studied over the past 16 weeks. We pray to confess to God our sins, numerous as they are, and to experience grace, mercy, and forgiveness at his hand. We pray to thank him for all that he is and all that he has done.

We pray to make our supplication known to him to fulfill the invitation he has left us. Now, notice how that falls right in line with the model prayer of Matthew chapter 6. And in the conclusion, when we pray, we must remember who God is and who we are before him.

If we just do that, we're going to make great strides. We must remember first and foremost that God's name is to be kept holy, especially in our prayers. We must remember that he is the source of our provision and that all good things come from him.

And we are to live in such a way that we make visible the kingdom of God in this world. We must regularly confess our sin, for that is one of the surest marks of a Christian. We are to pray that God will protect us from the evil one.

We must always remember that God is God and owes no man anything. We have been invited to come boldly before God, but never flippantly, arrogantly, or presumptuously. And finally, if there is a secret to learning how to pray, it's no different from any other endeavor.

What do you think that is? The same answer the old guy gave the little kid when he asked how to get the Carnegie Hall. Practice. To become accomplished in anything, we must practice. If we want to learn how to pray, then we must pray and continue to pray.

Any questions?