Prayer (Part 1 of 3)

Our lives and how we pray, how often we pray, is incredibly significant.

In this series, we’ll look at the basis of prayer – what it is and isn’t; why and how we pray, what God is looking for; specific prayers, and practical helps.

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There are certain verses where you only need to read them out and it’s obvious we are meant to be in communication with God. We are meant to have a relationship with our heavenly father.

2 Corinthians 6:1

Andrew Murray said are five essential elements of true prayer :

The heart’s desire – a desire which God puts into your heart to pray. It maybe a pressure in your life which causes you to pray.

The expression of that desire in prayer.

The faith that carries that prayer to God. This is all initiated by God, but it’s His delight to make us co-workers with Him.

In that prayer, the acceptance of God’s answers. You anticipate an answer. You aren’t prescriptive – you don’t determine how He will answer. But you anticipate an answer.

The experience of the desired blessing. Seeing God answer prayer.

God in His wisdom had caused you and me to become co-workers with Him via prayer. 95% of what Jesus said on prayer was about talking and asking, not thinking. Some people say prayer might be meditation. But when you analyse what Jesus said about prayer, the majority was about talking and asking, not thinking.

I’ve been fascinated to read a few examples of prayer. Anyone who knows anything of people’s experience in this will think of George Muller. He started orphanages. There are one or two still left near Bristol.

Quotes, along the following lines : They had 28s which was just enough to buy meat, bread, tea and milk for a couple of days. But after that they were in an extremity, facing the prospect of having to sell things they didn’t absolutely need in order to make further provision. A lady had come from London, bringing money with her. For some reason it took three days before she handed that money over, during the whole of which time they were praying. But the money came just at the right moment, and Muller saw it as a wonderful example of God’s answer to prayer.

Day in, day out, just in time, God provided. If you ever want to learn about a person of faith solely relying on prayer, George Muller is one.

Another quote, along the following lines : There were two lady missionaries in China before the communists took over. They had to collect large sum of money to bring to a hospital in order to pay salaries etc. They collected this from a bank, but were delayed and had to spend the night on the hills in bandit-infested territory. They slept with the bag of money between them. Some weeks later, a bandit leader was brought to the hospital. He said he had seen them with the money, and he and the brigands had wanted the money, but didn’t take it because they saw 27 soldieries with the ladies. Some time later, the ladies related this story at their home church in London. The church secretary asked for the precise date when this had happened, and then consulted his meticulous notes – and said that on that day the church prayer meeting had had a special burden for them ... a meeting at which 27 were present ...”

I could ask various of you to quote where God has answered prayer for you specifically.

What God wants to do is strengthen our prayer life and make it more real than it’s ever been. I can look to occasions in my own life. I was preparing for a camp once, and I suddenly realised we had no piano. I got together with the coach driver and said we’d go and find a piano. We prayed for a piano, and we got in the coach and drove. And within a few miles, we knocked on a door at a church. The man said they had been going to get rid of a piano and we could have it. I was probably about sixteen at the time, and that was a classic, just-in-time, answer. That sounds small in comparison to George Muller, but it was very real.

God wants an intimacy in prayer for you and me.

Genesis 3:8-11

It was the voice of God walking. In the beginning was the Word. God is all about relationship and communication. Man’s original state was in communion with God, and it was His voice which was walking in the garden. There was a oneness with the creator. And when sin came there was a barrier to that oneness. Sin broke the relationship and Adam and Eve hid from God. They no longer wanted to communicate with Him. Sin brought a reluctance to communicate.

Exodus 20:18-20

Again, the barrier. You speak – we don’t want to.

As we move forward to today – post crucifixion, post resurrection, we are in a different relationship with God.

It really is paramount that you and I make time to pray. It’s not the case that you can say, “I’m always praying to God because I think of Him all the time.” The more I read of this subject, the more apparent it is that we need to make time to get alone with God in prayer. Not legalism or ritual, but we need to develop communication so we can talk to God and hear from Him.

In the Old Testament, they appealed to Him as the merciful one, but there was not the intimacy which we have in prayer now.

Numbers 10:35-37

A direct appeal to God’s help.

Numbers 14:17-20

Another appeal to God’s mercy and character – but not the intimacy which Jesus brought about when He communicated with father.

Judges 16:28

There was a calling out, but there wasn’t the intimacy you’d have in a family situation.
In the New Testament, the disciples were seeing what Jesus was doing in His prayer life, and one of them plucked up courage to ask about it.

Luke 11:1-3

Totally different – “Our Father which art in heaven.” The common denominator in Jesus’s prayer life is that He got alone with God when there were decisions to be made. There was no formula. I can’t turn to a specific scripture and identify the things you have to do when you pray. But Jesus pointed out that in various instances, people were getting it wrong.

Matthew 6:7

When – not if – you pray. As far as Jesus was concerned, and this is broughtrne out in Acts and in the Epistles, we’re meant to pray.

Matthew 6:8

People say, “If God knows what things I need, why do we pray?” The answer goes back to 2 Corinthians. We are co-workers together with Him, and it’s His delight to involve us in what He is doing. If it’s His delight, it matters that we spend time talking to Him.

How many people spend five minutes specifically on their own praying to God in a day? Ten minutes? Twenty minutes ...

I know the pace of life. I think actually that what God is doing with us is to get out attention to what He wants us to do. And He wants us to start spending time with Him.

John 15:15-17

In prayer, there is the fact of you asking God for something. That’s not selfish, but you do ask. He plants that desire in your heart to pray, and the delights in you praying and delights in answering.

Sometimes in the pressure of life, it’s good to grab minutes, or make a specific time when you can pray to God. And don’t be dismissive of your spouse praying. If they’ve gone off to pray – brilliant. Let’s encourage one another in prayer.

There was an example on the Old Testament of someone who walked with God and then disappeared.

Hebrews 11:5

I’m not saying that suddenly you’re going to disappear. But I am saying that description was that he pleased God.

Hebrews 11:6

This is you in your prayer. That’s why a few weeks ago I mentioned about recoring when you pray for something. Write it down and date it and refer back to it. Prayer is real. And if one were to put a flipchart up and we were to record what we were praying for as a church, it could focus our minds on what God has prompted us to pray to look for the answer.

Prayer is born out of faith in God and His promises.

Hebrews 10:22-26

We have to draw together to God. We believe He will answer what we pray. We should get alongside someone else – “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst.” There is something about linking up with someone else to pray.

Supposing you thought it would be good to pray for our young people, and you knew that that was really on your heart and you talked to someone and it was on their heart too. What would be wrong in linking up with that person to pray with that combined desire?

That’s what I think will come about amongst us – we’ll be aware that there is the freedom to do it, and we’ll want to get together. Does that mean I have to initiate something formal? No. But it shouldn’t be unnatural or abnormal for that to happen – and it will happen. I think God is putting in different people’s hearts elements of concern for this and that, where there is a synergy of a desire to come before God – to lift up a particular person, or whatever.

Isaiah 49:8

It will be acceptable because it’s prompted by God. It’s the Holy Spirit who prompts us to pray. It may be a circumstance which automatically causes you to have a need for God’s help. Nothing wrong with that. But Jesus was careful to explain what the role of the Holy Spirit was. This is where we have a different scenario from the Old Testament. Jesus died, rose from the dead, and the spirit of truth came.

John 16:13-15

The Holy Spirit prompts us. We need to be sensitive to what the Holy Spirit is doing. And that sensitivity will outwork in your prayer life that you are praying according to God’s will because He put that desire in your heart to pray.

Romans 8:26

We don’t know what to pray unless we are sensitive to the spirit. If nothing else, it would help to make that little bit of time. Pray as suits you, but be alert, awake, sensitive.

Romans 8:26-28

Jesus is always making intercession for you and me. That’s His role. We become part of that process. When we have made time for prayer, the Holy Spirit will prompt us to think of the things He wants us to pray about. So it’s vital we give Him time. Sheer practicality. If we don’t give Him time, it won’t happen in the same way.

James 5:13-19

To fulfill that verse, we have to have elders.

Elijah was like you and me, and all he did was pray according to what God wanted and the result was as described there.

Talking is the other thing I know will happen more and more. We’ll find it more natural to share what God is doing in our lives. we wont get over religious. We’re just Christians who want to go forward individually and collectively to what God wants.

Mark 14:32

I think that wasn’t an uncommon thing for Him to say and do. Prayer was part of His life.

Mark 14:33-38

They overheard Him. Sometimes it may help you to pray out loud – not so that others can hear, but to keep you alert and specific.

Throughout Jesus’s life succeeded in fulfilling every ounce of God’s will. And that’s a top priority for us. If we have a decision to make, we pray about it. We don’t want to make a wrong move, to jump in without sorting things out with God.

Mark 14:36-42

I often wonder how this affected the prayer lives of the disciples later, having overheard Jesus pray. I think they overheard Him a lot.

This verse points out that the key thing is to do God’s will for your life. That’s a centrality of my prayer life.

Phillipians 4:6-8

In everything – not something, but everything. If you meet someone who is praying whether to run for the post now or catch the later one, that might be of concern. But ... “with thanksgiving” let your requests be made known, and as a result there will be a guarding of your heart if you offload everything to God. That’s what George Muller did. His whole attitude was that it was God’s problem and He will sort it.

Tonight I hope this will help you to spend time. God wants you to have His peace in your heart.

We need to pray for the trustees. They need wisdom to know how to progress things. God will sort it out.

In your life as you bring everything with prayer and supplication, your heart will be guarded and there will be peace.

Colossians 4:2-5

Ephesians 6:16-20

You would think Paul would be able to preach readily, but he needed prayer.

The Old Testament was different. What made the New Testament different was not only the example of Jesus, but when He sent the Holy Spirit, there came the indwelling Christ, and the promoting of the Holy Spirit created that intimacy in your relationship which you have and can have more of.

In God using His word to talk to us, I’m excited that practical things will happen for good.

Seven things a prayer should be said with:

Sincerity

Simplicity - We’re not out to make things complicated. When Jesus conveyed the Lord’s prayer, it was very simple, and very profound.

Humility - Jesus pointed out the Pharisee who said he was glad he was not like a sinner.

Intensity. This is serious stuff we’re talking about.

Charity – “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We don’t use prayer as a means of getting our own back.

Unanimity – if we’re with a second or third person, we’re united in our prayer.

Tenacity – not giving up without an answer, can we pray more than once? Yes. We need an answer. We need to reach out to those who need Him.