a. This week we witnessed a terrible tragedy in Virginia – 32 men and women entered eternity, and hundreds of others stood at the precipice of eternity and glanced into it as bullets whizzed by their ears. Join me as we pray for the victims families and the future of those who survived this encounter.
2. Question: What do you do when your back is against the wall, when you are out of options, when you don’t have anyone else to turn to and when all of your resources are gone? You cry out to God!
a. What do you think those students did who were trapped in those classrooms, hoping to survive? I have to believe that most of those young adults called out to God!
b. The very act of crying out to God is an act of prayer.
i. Prayer can be a desperate act of trust, a casting of oneself upon One greater than themselves.
ii. You may remember what the definition of trust is – to place your entire weight upon another object without reserve.
c. But what do we really mean by prayer?
i. Dwight Moody was once addressing a crowded meeting of children in Scotland. To get their attention, he asked, “what is prayer?” He really wasn’t expecting the children to answer. To his amazement, hands shot up all over the auditorium. One lad quoted his textbook answer, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to His will, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of His mercies.”
1. That is a bit complicated and theological for a child…
2. But if Mr. Moody were to ask this question of us today, what do you think our replies would be?
3. Think about how you would reply to that question.
ii. Most people would say, “Prayer is asking God for stuff.”
1. But isn’t prayer a lot more than asking God to be our errand boy or magic genie?
2. Prayer is more than a beggar knocking on a rich man’s door.
3. Too many times, we treat prayer as a transaction and not an opportunity to commune with God. Even though we are bred to be consumers in this country, we should never get caught up in the idea that prayer is a retail experience.
iii. Prayer at its core is turning our hearts toward God.
1. Psalm 25:1 “to You Oh Lord, I lift up my soul.”
2. What prayer really is, is seeking God, because with God you have all you need.
3. Prayer is the ultimate act of trust in God.
a. Psalm 31:1-5 1 In You, O LORD, I have taken refuge; Let me never be ashamed; In Your righteousness deliver me. 2 Incline Your ear to me, rescue me quickly; Be to me a rock of strength, A stronghold to save me. 3 For You are my rock and my fortress; For Your name’s sake You will lead me and guide me. 4 You will pull me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me, For You are my strength. 5 Into Your hand I commit my spirit
b. The psalmist is voicing a prayer to God. His words are addressed to God Himself.
i. He proclaims that he has taken refuge, and he asks God for deliverance, rescue, and for guidance. In verse four he declares that “You (God) are my strength.” He concludes with verse 5, “Into Your hand I commit my spirit.”
ii. Most of us are familiar with this verse because they are the final words of Jesus on the cross. But they were also spoken by David over a thousand years before as an act of trust in God through prayer.
iii. Prayer often involves ceasing our activity and waiting upon the activity of God.
iv. Most of us find it easier to “do something” instead of quietly resting in the promises and character of God.
c. Trust is at the root of all praying.
i. Trust believes that God is who He says He is and is able and willing to answer the petitioner.
ii. Trust leans entirely upon the Other, places its full weight on God, and ceases to act on his own accord while He asks God to provide.
iii. Trust is faith that has become firm. It is like concrete that has set. Once hardened in place, it will no longer be stirred.
iv. EM Bounds calls trust “firm belief, faith in full bloom.”
v. Trust is also a conscious act, a willful choice we make.
vi. EM Bounds quote: “Trust is not a belief that God can bless or that he will bless, but that He DOES bless, here and now. Trust always operates in the present tense. Hope looks to the future, trust looks to the present. Hope expects. Trust possesses. Trust receives what prayer acquires. What prayer needs, at all times, is abiding and abundant trust.”
vii. Ultimately, trust means we cease from our efforts and crawl into the arms of the One who is “big enough.”
4. Why don’t we pray?
a. We all yearn for prayer and yet we don’t do it. We are attracted by prayer, but yet are repelled from it. We believe prayer is something we should do, but we feel like a barrier keeps us from doing it. Most of us cannot really figure out why we don’t pray.
i. Richard Foster says that most of us consider prayer a skill we must master, like algebra or auto mechanics. But such a belief deceives us to believe that somehow we are in control. He goes on to say that when we pray, we actually deliberately surrender control and become incompetent. (Richard Foster, Prayer, pg. 8)
1. So when we pray, really pray…we are acknowledging that we aren’t in control, we aren’t competent, and that we NEED God. Our inner man, our ego, subconsciously fights against this truth.
b. Most of us want to be “in control.” We are all control freaks. Yet trusting prayer requires that we let go.
i. It means that we enter into complete dependence on God and refuse to try to figure it out, make it work or manage the results.
ii. God is big enough to take care of your needs.
iii. Andrew Murray (1828 - 1917), once said, "The power of prayer depends almost entirely upon our apprehension of who it is with whom we speak."
1. To apprehend God, we need to slow down, to stop and before we rattle off our needs, we must figure out who it is we are talking to, who it is that we are about to place our unreserved trust in.
2. Trust in Prayer is a lot like trying to start a car. You never try to start a car (with an automatic transmission) while it is in gear. It just doesn’t work. That is what trust does with prayer. It places our gear in neutral so we can get the engine of our relationship with God going. Trust requires waiting, quietness, rest, staying in neutral. You will never really pray until you do this.
iv. The goal of prayer is not to promote inactivity, but rather, dependent activity. (dependent upon God.) This is why prayer is an act of trust. We stop taking things into our own hands, instead, place them deliberately into God’s hands. (Richard Foster, Prayer, p 96)
1. Think for a moment when you have a child who has gone wayward, and all of your efforts have no impact. What do you do? You commit that child to God in a desperate act of trust and prayer. You cease trying to fix the child. You stop trying to figure out what will work. Instead, you give him over to God’s power and wait for God’s answer.
5. The Ultimate Call To Prayer
a. The bible is filled with references to prayer, but none so clear and powerful as the one I am going to share with you.
b. 2 Chronicles 7:14 “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
i. This often quoted passage from 2nd Chronicles depicts what happens when God’s people pray.
ii. But what we don’t look very closely in this passage, is the actions that accompany true prayer: Four things are mentioned: Humbling ourselves (trust God instead of ourselves), praying, (talking to God), seeking His face (His presence), and turning from our wicked ways (self-led, self-run lives).
c. I want to address these four prerequisites to God’s action because they are key to understanding prayer as an act of trust in God.
i. Humbling Ourselves: That is getting a right view of ourselves.
1. We think we can do a lot on our own strength, but the truth is, we can do nothing apart from God. (Jesus said in John 15:5 “apart from Me you can do nothing”)
2. I can tell you that you and I will not pray or trust God if we are trusting in ourselves and our own abilities.
3. Trusting in ourselves and our abilities is called pride.
4. Prayerlessness is a result of pride and self-sufficiency.
5. Humbling ourselves means acknowledging the truth about ourselves, that we cannot do anything apart from God.
ii. Pray: Our verse says “humble themselves and pray.” The “and pray” is the DIRECT result of humbling oneself.
1. The reason we don’t pray much is because either we don’t see our need or we don’t see God as our SOLE source of supply.
a. Society tells us to believe that God helps those who help themselves. (Aesop’s Fables)
b. The Bible teaches us to believe that God helps those who ask for his help.
c. The Bible teaches us that what God wants from us is humility, trust, and dependence. He wants us to come to him in prayer as a first impulse, not a last resort.
2. We either have God as our “plan B” in case our efforts fail, or we are our Plan B in case God doesn’t come through. Neither attitude is conducive to true prayer or trust.
3. Our society has devised an ingenious tool to combat the issue of insecurity. We know it as insurance. We have insurance available for just about anything. We like to try to hedge against the unknown, as the goal of insurance is to provide security in the event of loss.
a. We need security, abut true security comes from God alone.
b. What we need for prayer to occur is a greater dependence and unreserved trust in God.
c. True prayer is a act of dependence upon the sufficiency and character of God.
4. Because we have far more food than we need for the day, enough knowledge to fend for ourselves, sufficient resources to figure things out, bright minds to depend upon, we will not turn to God in dependence on a daily basis.
5. We are far too self-sufficient to depend upon God in that manner…we only need to trust Him in the “big” things like a loved one’s salvation or incurable diseases.
6. God calls us to daily, moment-by-moment dependence in prayer.
7. Until that happens, we will see the absence of the hand of God in what we do as a people, a church and a nation.
iii. Seek God’s Face = means to seek God’s presence.
1. I don’t know about you, but I find it a lot easier to seek the tv remote than I do to seek God’s face.
2. We often seek God because of what we can get from Him, or we enjoy Him for what He does for us, but do we seriously enjoy Him for who He is, and simply seek Him to enjoy His presence?
3. Most of us (me too) still have far too many things that we enjoy more than God.
4. We may SAY we love God, but the truth is in the time we are willing to spend enjoying Him over other things.
iv. Turn from a Self Led Life: This is the daily struggle of every Christian. If it isn’t a struggle for you, it is likely that you aren’t a Christian. W
1. When you first give your heart and life to Jesus, He leads your life in wonderful ways. But when God points out areas we must let go of, we resist His leading.
2. Other times, our pride and self just gets in the way and we do things our way because that is our habit and pattern of life. It is only when we screw it up so bad that our lives are falling apart that we realize we need God.
3. This passage calls this “wicked ways” – which are ways that are not in accordance with God’s ways. The root of all of our sinful, immoral or disobedient behavior is found in a self-led, self run life.
4. This passage tells us that until we turn away from this attitude of independence, we will not experience the benefits of prayer.
6. Jim Cymbala, in his book “Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire”, details the miraculous growth of the Brooklyn Tabernacle because of its dedication to prayer. In 1972 he was asked to pastor part-time a small church in a shabby two-story building on Atlantic Avenue in New York City. The location was bad. The people were few. The facilities were falling apart. In fact, he tells about how a pew broke one Sunday night, spilling several people onto the floor as he preached. As he prayed one day about what to do, Cymbala writes that he sensed God speaking: “If you and your wife will lead my people to pray and call upon my name, you will never lack for something fresh to preach. I will supply all the money that’s needed , both for the church and for your family, and you will never have a building large enough to contain the crowds I will send in response.” He went back to the church and told them that from that moment on the health of the church would be measured by its Tuesday night prayer meeting. That first night 15 people came. God began to move. The church grew. The prayer meeting became larger. They were forced three times to seek larger facilities. In 13 years they were running 1600 each Sunday service. Hundreds came to the Tuesday night prayer meeting. God brought miraculous conversions, healings, and deliverances. This was a result of trusting God in prayer, both individually and corporately as a church.
7. Are you trusting God in prayer? Are you experiencing His answers in such a way that you see His hand regularly in your life? Or are you struggling with your independence, your own way of doing things, of doing it “my way?” Do you really believe in the power of prayer?
a. If so, I am calling you today to look to God, to gaze on his face today, to recognize he is above all else, powerful, loving, able to meet your needs. Won’t you trust Him today? Jesus laid down His life for you so that you could have access to the Father. There is no greater privilege than prayer. To not pray is to reject this great gift that Jesus gave His life for.
b. I am calling you to reflect upon the greatness of God, the sufficiency of God and to examine your heart toward trusting God in prayer today. Won’t you turn from that self led life and seek God’s face, humble yourself and pray? Today? The altar is open.
Lets pray.
“Forgive us for thinking that prayer is a waste of time and help us to see that without prayer our work is a waste of time.” -Peter Marshall
