Effectual Fervent Prayer

A movie by the title of The In-Laws came out in 1979. There was a re-make of it in 2003, but my favorite version is still the original one. It featured Alan Arkin as a conventional dentist and Peter Falk as a manic character who claims to be a government agent. Their kids are about to be married, but on the day before the wedding, Peter Falk manages to implicate Alan Arkin in a series of misadventures that take them as far as Central America. While there, they wind up as prisoners of a local dictator, who decides to have them executed by a firing squad. As General Garcia is putting blindfolds on the two Americans, he asks the Peter Falk character a question. His question was this: “Are you a praying man?” The implication, of course, is that, if he is in fact a praying man, he’d better get busy and make things right with God. I can’t remember what Peter Falk said, but I have never forgotten the question.

It’s a good question, isn’t it? “Are you a praying man?” Or, “Are you a praying woman?” We are going to talk about prayer today. We’re not going to say everything there is to say about it, of course; there isn’t enough time. But I am going to share with you some biblical principles about prayer that may be a little challenging. At least, they’re that way for me.

I’ve titled my remarks Effectual Fervent Prayer, words that come from the King James Version’s rendering of James 5:16. The English Standard Version is accurate but doesn’t have the same flourish. It says simply, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” But there is a noticeable dignity that the King James has that more modern translations don’t have. Just listen to it: “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Do you hear the resonance in that?

The Greek original behind the words “effectual” and “fervent” is actually one word. It’s the Greek term from which we get our English word energy or energetic, and it simply means that something is working. So, what James is talking about here is prayer that works. Wouldn’t you like to be able to pray that way, so that, when you pray, you have the confidence that your prayers are effective, that they’re working? What would that look like?

James gives us an example. He directs our attention to Elijah, the ninth century prophet in the Northern Kingdom. If you recall, in our reading from 1 Kings we heard about the very incident that James references here. Elijah prayed that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it didn’t. And there was a severe drought. Then he prayed again, and the heavens were opened and the rain came. And the drought was over.

What was it about Elijah that caused James to think of him? He implies that Elijah was a “righteous person,” but he doesn’t even come close to suggesting that he was some sort of spiritual superman. In fact, he tells us that “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.” He possessed the same frailties and limitations that plague us. And yet his prayers worked. How come?

I want share with you three principles for effectual fervent prayer, for prayer that works – principles that come right out of the pages of Scripture, in fact, right out of the account of Elijah in 1 Kings.

The first principle is this: Effectual fervent prayer comes from a deep sense of dissatisfaction with the way things are, what we might call a holy discontent. Now notice, I said holy discontent. I’m not talking about being unhappy with your life and the way things have fallen out for you. If we don’t like the circumstances we’re in, we may need to consider the possibility that God has put us there to show us something we need to learn. His big agenda is not making us happy; his big agenda is making us holy. And he may have to make us terribly unhappy to make us holy.

When I say that we are to be dissatisfied with the way the things are, what I mean is: the way things are from God’s perspective. This world is messed up because, the way things are, they don’t honor God. And you and I need to pray that we will be deeply grieved by that reality. In the Lord’s Prayer we say, “Hallowed be thy name.” But his name is not hallowed. It’s not revered. It’s not regarded with respect.

When Elijah shows up in 1 Kings 17, we find him addressing Ahab, the king of Israel. And Ahab is a wicked man. He has disobeyed God’s commandments and he has led his people to disobey them. He is married to the pagan queen Jezebel and, at her request, he has erected temples and altars to her false gods, Baal and his consort, Asherah. And when Jezebel decided to have all the prophets of Israel’s God slain, Ahab did nothing to stop her. He encouraged her in her murderous pursuit to eradicate God’s name from the landscape.