The Laborers' Podcast - Prayer Part 1

Welcome to the Laborers Podcast tonight. So you probably noticed we've got four squares instead of five or six. So Dan's without power likely. Rob is on call. So we are here with you. We've got Tyler Noe up in the top right.

We've got Andy Cain in the bottom left. And we've got John Jones in the bottom, right? Big John.

Yes, sir.

Real talk with Big John. Forever the Word podcast and God-centered theology. So these guys are gonna do a lot tonight. I'm just here to kind of facilitate and help along any way that I can. What we are going to be talking about tonight is prayer, the importance of prayer.

What is prayer? What is prayer? What are the key takeaways that we, from the Lord's Prayer is one of the passages of scripture that we're gonna be looking at just to give you all an overview. What is the significance in persisting in prayer?

Why do we pray in Jesus' name? And what does that mean? What is the role of the spirit in prayer? What is the connection between fasting and prayer? How do we deal with supposed unanswered prayer? How do we pray in faith, right?

And then big kind of a generalized topic here, sovereignty and providence of God versus man's responsibility in the area of prayer request. And then we're gonna look at James in closing. If we can fit all that in.

That was a mouthful guys. So how are y 'all doing?

Doing all right.

Very well.

We had a good time pre-show. The only thing that we lacked was arm wrestling. And we know Big John would win amongst all of us on that.

I don't know about that.

And Andy's got Superman in the background. So he may have super powers.

I was getting ready to say, there's a pretty good chance I don't have any kryptonite. So I don't know if I can take brother Andy down.

Well, the difference is I don't get my power from the yellow sun. I get it from diet. Mountain Dew.

Oh yeah. Do the Dew.

All right.

So let's do this. Let's start tonight. Andy, let's start with you. So give us a bit of a description. Did you get the notes?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Did you get, would you care to give us a bit of description biblically? What is prayer?

Yes, sir. I actually came across a article today and I spent quite a bit of time trying to hunt down who the author was. It's on Ligonier's website about prayer and how it relates to scripture. And so I can share the link later, but I could not, I wanna, I like to give credit to people when they write stuff, but the author's name is nowhere to be found.

So whoever wrote this, I apologize, but I really enjoyed it. And I looked at it and it says, it quotes A .W. Pink and it says, Pink said, prayer is not designed for the furnishing of God with the knowledge of what we need, but it is designed as a confession to him of our sense of need.

Not designed for the furnishing of God with the knowledge of what we need. We have the scriptures to furnish us with what we need to know. Prayer is designed to give as a confession to our father of our sense of need and understanding that we need him.

Some other highlights of this article, and I'm not gonna read all of it because I want you to go and read it, but just some highlights that stood out to me. He talks, this author talks about how God knows what we need before we ask him, things like that.

In one paragraph, he talks about how in prayer we acknowledge our dependence on the Lord to give him his due and glory. And it's effective in our lives because God has chosen it. Notice that God has chosen to use prayer as a means to bring about his purposes.

And so some thoughts that I wrote down, prayer is a very natural thing for the Christian. It's not meant for the unregenerate. Prayer is not a thing that is meant for unsaved people. Now, when someone is regenerated and brought to spiritual life, the first act of obedience and the first act of faith that is a direct result of having been raised to life is the fact that we will naturally, very naturally in that moment, repent of our sin, put our faith in Jesus Christ.

And so it begins that journey of the, when you think about it, the new creature that we are in Christ begins very naturally with prayer because it's a very natural thing for the Christian. Also, prayer is for us.

God doesn't need prayer. We need prayer. God doesn't need, we have need. Prayer is a very vital part of, I like how the ESV study Bible uses very often in the New Testament, particularly in Matthew 5 and 6 and some of the places we're gonna be tonight, a lot of the headings over the chapters, it refers to kingdom life.

What does kingdom life look like? We are adopted in the family of God. We are part of his kingdom. What does kingdom life looks like? Well, it involves prayer. And what is very interesting in the word prayer comes from two different words in the original and one pros meaning towards or in exchange.

Yeah.

And so what is literally happening in prayer is we are taking what we would wish to be or what we think we need or what we think we want and the things that we have a desire for. And if you think about it in super nerdy computer terms, we have in many devices, in software and hardware and in the computer and technology world, many different types of interfaces.

An interface is just a very nerdy word to say, what is it you're using to obtain what it is you're wanting to use it for? So, you know, for example, sermon audio, which is something that I use, they have the interface there where you can upload your sermon, you can put a title to it, all these.

That's the interface I'm using to get my content onto sermon audio. So God uses prayer as an interface between an infinite, eternal being and finite time bound creatures to where ultimately the goal, and then I'll end my opening statement with this.

The goal is that as we pray, we are doing an exchange. We are going to God with our needs, wants and desires. And over time, God is exchanging and imparting his faith and his desires and his will into us to where as we grow in our maturity as Christians, we grow in our ability to pray for the right things.

So as a way of talking to the Lord, it's a way of interfacing with God. It's a way of interacting with the one who saved us. And to me, the ultimate goal is to understand what God's will is and what that looks like in our life.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, we got the keys going. Big John, get ready. Get ready. Cause I

I wanna ask you a question before I forget.

Yes, sir.

Did y 'all get the chat thing? Did that come across?

I see it.

Oh, man. So do you wanna ask it?

Go ahead.

So, Brother Andy, you said something I totally agree with. And it has been one of the things that, I've combated this so much from behind the pulpit. If prayer is a form of communion between God the Father and his children, then, and you said only Christians or only believers can pray.

And the only time that the sinner prays is after he has been regenerated. And in obedience to that regeneration, he comes to pray. Or did I, I didn't mishear you or misunderstand you, did I?

Yes, it is my position that in light of what scripture teaches about the unregenerate being. So extremely long story short, I believe that man is made up at birth of a body and a soul. From that point forward, he will be eternal in the sense he will never cease to exist.

And he has a physical body. Yeah, dichotomy, he has a physical body. But ultimately, a regenerate person is in a sense switched. I probably don't have the best terminology at the moment. They're sort of recreated with trichotomy in the sense that now he has a spirit that has raised the life.

And I believe scripture is, without going into all the different scriptures as to why, but just a very short answer, I believe scripture indicates that the only way someone can have faith and have a prayer life and have a response to the gospel is if their spirit has raised the life first.

So very naturally, like R .C. Sproul would say, regeneration precedes faith.

So whenever you consider, that's why it makes sense whenever Jesus talks about when you pray, say, our father. Is it assuming, assuming a regenerate person is the one praying, whenever people say that.

So then how do you face the sinner's prayer?

How do I do what with it?

How do you face that? Because one of the things that I've found is that inevitably I'll be dealing with somebody who raised a hand one time or walked an aisle one time, or there's some kind of terminology that I'm completely unaware of, they use.

And they said, they repeated what a man told them to say. And somehow or another, this set them right with God. How many of y 'all dealt with that in terms of from ministry platform?

How much time do we have?

I'm not the one running the show, I'm just.

You're, I'm with you, yeah.

It is and has been rampant, right? That the idea of the sinner's prayer being a magic, like a magic spell.

Yeah.

I remember when I was like in the eighth grade or something and my sister, my grandma took my brother and my sister and myself to a play down in South Carolina and they had an altar call at the end. And my sister wanted to go up front to the altar call.

And my mamaw said, take your sister up there, there's too many people up here, her to go by herself.

I said, okay, whatever.

You just do what mamaw said or she hits you. I didn't even, I mean, so I took her down there and some well-meaning brother comes up to me and says, you want to go to hell?

And I was like, well, no.

I mean, I thought it seemed like a pretty straightforward answer. And he said, all right, buddy, take me by the hand and repeat after me. I said, yes, sir, because I was raised, you do what you're told.

Yeah.

And I told him, go ahead.

I was gonna say, I have a very, very good answer now that I know what you're asking about. Basically what you're saying is how does my viewpoint in terms of what I believe about essentially election and what prayer being for the regenerate, how's that play in with the quote unquote sinner's prayer?

Well, I would say the sinner's prayer is not biblical for one.

No, I agree with that. That's more or less what I was getting to, but how do you go about combating that where it's deeply rooted?

Yeah, and the way I would combat it is I would help people understand and keep in mind, depending on who you're dealing with, you may be very gentle. Some cases you may have to be a little bit more forceful depending on who you're dealing with, but I would explain to them that they've got the gospel wrong to begin with.

You see, as a reformed theologian, I believe the gospel has 100 success rate. Every single person that Christ died for will be saved. Every single person that repents and believes the gospel will be saved.

I don't have to worry about failing. And so much of, in particular, the independent fundamentalist movement, that still, even in SPC churches that aren't fundamentalists, they still see some of the stain on them.

They are so worried about someone not getting saved or failing in evangelism that they sort of overwork it to where they're trying to get this thing, well, I got them to do this, so now I can go home and feel good that I got them to say the prayers, they must be going to heaven.

No, we're called to go into the world and call men everywhere to repent and believe. And I believe that every single person that does that will be saved. We don't need to use gimmicks. We don't need to do any of that.

So I would say ultimately what sinner's prayer is, the sinner's prayer is an attendance-increasing gimmick, as maybe a little harsh to some. And I don't mean that every well-intentioned person out there that doesn't know any better, that's just trying to lead somebody to Christ, is doing that.

I'm talking about those that know better.

So how do you combat that? I just, I know that as somebody comes up to me, say it's on a job site, say it's at an altar, I don't care, I'll pray wherever, whenever. You don't even have to drop a hat. And if somebody comes up to me and says, I want you to pray with me or pray for me, I will.

How do you, if somebody comes up to you about a matter of salvation, how do you approach that? I know how I approach that. I'm just curious as how you approach that. Do you lead them? Do you follow them?

Do you instruct them in any capacity whatsoever?

What does that look like?

You wanna answer that, Tyler?

Yeah, go ahead, Tyler.

Well, like we said, it's repent and believe. It's essentially repent of your sins and obey Christ. And so it's not this one and done light switch moment as much as it is a 180. And so if someone came to you asking about salvation like that, John, I would say it's probably more in the direction of instructing them to obey what Jesus has said moving forwards, to restructure their lives, to seek God at the centerfold.

It says in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, which is to throw out the label. That's the verse that made me a Calvinist was no one ever says Jesus is accursed in the spirit. And no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.

So if you can say with any authenticity that Jesus is Lord, you are indwelled with the Holy Spirit. That has already taken a hold of you. That is already at work within you. And so the next step is to obey, is to walk with God, to abide in Christ and bear fruit.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, I'm just curious how y 'all approach that. I wouldn't go as far as to call myself a Calvinist by no means.

I use the term as a joke.

In terms of how you approach these things, not as many times as I'd like to have had this happen. I've had the opportunity to pray with folks and I typically, well, first of all, I ask them. I ask them what they want me to pray for them about or with them about or how they want me, what capacity are you want me to pray for you?

I don't know if you don't tell me. I don't take subtle hints. I don't take obvious hints. I need you to tell me. My wife will testify right now. If you want me to figure out what you want, you better tell me because I will not know.

And...

Well, I think the heart of the question that you're getting at, John, is in the moment. And see, what part of this is in the Americanized Western sort of way we go about doing church. We think so much of salvation as a in the moment.

And God bless him. I love my granddaddy to death, but he would say, and I wish I could remember the day I got saved. He'd know the day, the hour, where he was at. And that's great. I would never discourage somebody from being happy about that.

But what it does is it's trained ourselves to think that it's some one moment in time thing we do. So the heart of what you're getting at is, okay, so if somebody's there and we know they need Christ, does it or would it necessarily involve some sort of prayer?

I would say it can, but it doesn't have to. You don't necessarily, because if you don't, let's say you confront somebody and they're tore up in the spirit and they're like, I need, I'm just sinner and I need to repent.

I need to, because ultimately the response to the gospel is a response of obedience to a command of God. To my knowledge, and I could be wrong, I don't think you find a lot of biblical prescription that says, okay, when you get saved, pray in this way.

The instruction we get in scripture about prayers to people that are already saved. So like Tyler was saying is, we need to help people understand, yes, you need to repent and call on the name of the Lord, but understanding that when you're doing that, you're demonstrating a change that's already occurred in your heart.

So

I would agree with that.

Yeah, with children or with people that are very unchurched, I could see a benefit to leading them maybe through a prayer, because that'll sort of help them understand what's going on or something of that nature.

But I just think we need to be careful to not say you must do this in this way.

That's right. Can I give an example, John?

Go for it.

Can I give an example? So just along these lines, just a plain country example of what exactly what, and what we're talking about here for those who are listening. By the way, this is actually part of our outline.

That's what we've been addressing here is what prayer is not. This is what the big conversation is going on with us right now. But to what Andy said, we can't necessarily prescribe a pattern of words for individuals to say in order for them to know that they're saved.

And the example that I wanted to give was, oh gosh, I think now probably 20, 25 years ago, I was helping out at a little Methodist church down in Vaughnor, Tennessee. Nobody's heard of Vaughnor, but down in Vaughnor, Tennessee, it was a Bible school time.

And it was a very teeny tiny little church, 15, 20 people at most. But during BBS, I was teaching the teenagers. And Thursday night, I just decided, and I'll just use regular plain terminology. I felt the spirit telling me, break away from this lesson, break away from what you've been talking about and just show them the gospel from the scriptures.

And that's exactly what I did. I preached Jesus Christ and him crucified. After class, we typically went out and had refreshments, came back in for dismissal into the sanctuary. After dismissal, I walked outside the doors of this little bitty church, double doors at the entrance there.

I was standing on the porch, talking to somebody off the porch. I turned around and there was this one of these teenage boys. He was 12 years old. Carl was his name. He was, I mean, he was like I was when I was, I mean, he was just mean.

And I turned around and I saw him. And again, this is not about angelic visions or anything like that, but on the door of the church, they had a cross painted. And he was just standing there, staring at the door of that church, at that cross and just fighting back, getting broke down.

And I said, Carl, I said, what's going on? Do you feel like you need to be saved? And he just shook his head short, a real quick shake. I said, you wanna go up to the altar and pray or we can pray right here in the doorway.

He said, he just pointed down, let's pray right here. We got down on our faces before God right there. And this is the words that I told him. I said, Carl, there's not a magic formula. I can't put words in your mouth.

I will be glad to start us in prayer. You finish it. And I said, dear Jesus. That little 12 year old boy, all he said was, Jesus saved me. Now, did he get born again? I can't tell you, because I've not followed his life.

But I can tell you, if he did get born again, it wasn't the prayer that saved him. It was his faith in Jesus Christ and that alone. So John, when you come up on people like that, that want to, you know, that naturally are compelled to follow that pattern and that routine, sometimes it's good just to stop and say, let me say this first.

And then like Andy said, there's nowhere in the scripture that gives a prescribed pattern for the prayer of salvation. Howler said it, the scripture says, simply repent and believe. And it's too easy for the person who's not brokenhearted and got a contrite spirit.

It's too easy for them to reject that idea. But for the man, the woman, the boy or the girl who God has broke down like a double barrel shotgun, it's not a stretch for them to simply repent and believe.

Because the fight against that repenting and believing is the flesh. It's pride. Well, certainly there's gotta be more. Certainly I've got to do something. That's where prayer is not what we do. Prayer is us simply, I'm not gonna get ahead.

I'm gonna say no more, sorry guys.

No, I like what you covered there. That's good stuff.

Yeah, good.

So why don't we talk about what is prayer? What prayer is not? That was a big conversation there. So let's talk about, let's skip around in Rob's outline here. Let's talk about the role of the spirit in prayer.

Let's look at Romans chapter eight. Oh, I gotta spell it right. And particularly, let's bring this up here. Romans chapter eight, verse 26. But let's read a little bit before and after for context. Are y 'all good with that?

Absolutely. Go ahead.

Okay, and Tyler, this one's for you, right? What is the role of the spirit in prayer? So in Romans chapter eight, verse 18, the word of God says,. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope, we were saved. Now, hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. And then Paul states, likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness.

The King James says the spirit help with our infirmities, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

So Tyler, what is the role of the spirit in prayer based upon that passage of scripture that we just looked at?

Well, for one thing, the role of the Holy Spirit means that it's not about the words itself as much as it is the content of the heart and what God is doing in a person. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin in a way that goes deeper than words.

That it gets down to the root of, I am a sinful person. I am not good. I need God. I need to be sanctified. I need to be made new.

Amen.

I need to be purged. I need to have this sin rooted out of me. And this is what reaches God. Not necessarily my eloquent word salad.

Amen.

But the attitude of this heart that is made new by God through the personal work of Christ that has been raised to a new life. This heart is being conformed to the things of God one moment at a time. And prayer is a beautiful picture of that.

When we talk about those childlike prayers that we hear in youth group from that initial, I wanna get saved point. And we're not very eloquent. I know that when I first came into acknowledgement of my sinfulness, I didn't pray the sinner's prayer.

I wasn't led in prayer by anybody. I prayed by myself in the back pew for what felt like an hour. And I was not eloquent. I was not, I repeated myself a lot. And it was just, oh God, for what felt like an hour.

Having heard Isaiah six, woe is me. And there, as time has gone on, my words may be bigger now. I may use more syllables when I pray, but it's not the words that I speak that give it value. It's not my words that make it authentic because I could have a master's degree in English and still be spiritually dead.

Amen.

But it's all about the spirits. Like what Andy said, we have a body and a soul and the body can say whatever it wants, but the spirit is what counts.

So the spirit, verse 26 of that, the spirit helps us in our weaknesses. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. So I would say too, largely in the context of this passage itself, remember Paul is addressing a group of people who are suffering for Christ.

Who are facing persecution and death. And he's pointing them to the hope of Jesus Christ. He's pointing them to the source of their, the spring, if you'd have it, of their joy and of their hope and that it's not in themselves.

It's no matter how far we dig into ourselves, we are not gonna find anything good. We're not gonna find anything worthy, but what is the work of the spirit? I know this isn't one of the questions, but what is the work of the spirit?

It is to point to the father and the son. That's what the Holy Spirit does. I mean, when we're down in a deep, dark pit and we can't even see the light at the top of the pit, the Holy Spirit comes, he reflects, he shows us the glory of God in Jesus Christ.

So we have the father, we have the son, and we have the spirit. This is why we're Trinitarian, because they work together. They are one. And so the spirit helps our weaknesses. So again, contextually there, this is where we draw, we draw the meaning from the text.

Contextually, when we're facing death, sorrow, and sadness, and we don't even know what to say, sometimes all we can do is, like you said, Tyler, you just, oh God, you're just groaning. You don't even know really, you know, you don't know what to say, but the spirit brings to light the things that should be and are to be brought before the throne of God in prayer.

And that's the beauty. That's the beauty of being born again, to realize what the scripture says. I'm sorry, guys, I shouldn't have said that. This is, I'm supposed to be, it's supposed to be you all, but I mean, it is, the privilege of prayer is amazing.

It has been blood bought for us. That's why in Hebrews that we're taught, come boldly into the throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help us in our times of need. It is bought by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Prayer is not something just to pull out in the rough times, prayer is something to be done when you're up and when you're down.

Can I read a prayer from scripture real quick? Jonah chapter two, Jonah's in the belly of the fish or the whale or whatever we want to call it, but, and he prays and he does not say the sinner's prayer.

He doesn't give any package thing. And he reads, out of my distress, I called to Adonai and he answered me from the belly of Sheol, I cried and you heard my voice. For you threw me into the deep and into the heart of the seas and the flood enveloped me.

All your surging waves passed over me. And I thought I have been banished from your sight, but I will look again at your holy temple. The water surrounded me, threatened my life. The deep closed over me, seaweed twined around my head and I was going down to the bottoms of the mountains to a land whose bars would close me in forever.

But you brought me up alive from the pit, Adonai, my God. As my life was ebbing away, I remembered this Adonai and my prayer came to you, to your holy temple. Those who worship idols give up their source of mercy, but I speaking my thanks aloud will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay for salvation comes from Adonai.

Jonah's in the middle of probably the worst circumstance of his life. This is not a logical statement for him. This is, as we've been saying, this is the Holy Spirit putting words in his mouth. This is holy, holy mackerel.

I put myself here.

Pun intended.

Not intended, but it works, doesn't it?

I wanna jump in for a second because everything that Claude said and now what Tyler has just brought to light with Jonah too, I think is gonna put a nice bow on what John had started us with about the sinner's prayer.

Ultimately, we're not anti our brethren. For whatever reason, just believe that's the way you're supposed to do stuff. What we want to help them understand is that salvation is not about the content of what you're saying.

It's about the change that has occurred. So what I try to help people understand is at the moment you first exercise faith in Christ because your spirit has been raised to life, which is necessary because we worship in spirit and truth and someone with a spirit that is dead cannot do that.

That's right.

But that moment of salvation is probably, I would say for 99 of Christians, the clearest, most abundantly apparent recognition that, oh, I'm a dirty, rotten sinner. I'm in rebellion against my creator.

Like you said, with that little 12-year-old boy, God saved me. I mean, my granddaddy, the preacher, when he got saved, he didn't have, he'll tell you if he was alive today, I didn't have some elegant sermon, a lot like what Tyler said.

He said, I could barely through tears just say, Lord, save me. He called him in the name of the Lord. It's all scripture requires. It's all it requires. It does not require you to say, one, two, three, repeat after me or what.

And look, it doesn't mean that if, like I say, if I have a particular three-sentence prayer that covers the gospel that I use, if I'm with someone that clearly needs some sort of structure to help them understand what's going on, use it.

That's right.

But what I'm saying is we need to make sure that we also take that babe in Christ and help them understand what actually is going on in their life. So I'm one that, unless it is definitional to the faith and clearly prescribed in scripture, I tend to take more of a, let's have a little patience, a little grace here, because I'm telling y 'all right now, I was the most Milton independent fundamentalist, King James only as pre-millennial preacher of leisure, whatever they would spout off in their sermons, I was every bit of it.

And in my mind, I'm telling y 'all, you can think I'm exaggerating if you want, it's God's honest truth. Not only was I a one, two, three, repeat after me centers prayer guy, but if you did it with an NIV, it didn't matter what you said, you were still going to hell.

That's how bad I was. So I've come from that to now, I've got to say what I say when I respond to John earlier, but at the same time, I'm going to recognize that there was a time where if somebody had a came at me with that, I was like, what's this guy talking about?

The Bible just, the Bible says, call the name of the Lord. What's he talking about? All this understanding a new creature in Christ. Yeah, that comes later. You go from milk to meat. But the understanding is exactly what Claude said, what I think he said to the 12 year old boy, call the name of the Lord.

That's it.

That's it.

And what we're saying is the one that does that has I believe has had a spirit that's been raised to life because 100 of the time, individuals that have a spirit that is alive in Christ will repent and believe.

As a babe in Christ, I may not know how, this was to Tyler's point, I may not know how to articulate that as well as I do now at age 39 and a half. And I like to remind my wife that she's three months older than me.

So when she turns 40, I'll still have three months left. If she's watching right now, I'm going to be in big trouble later.

You're going to be in a Walmart bag in your sleep.