Prayer: A Means of Grace
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Elementary age children were asked to write a “Dear God” prayers:
7-year old Debbie prayed, “Dear God: Please send a new baby for Mommy. The new baby you sent last week cries too much.”
Hank, 7 “Dear Lord: Thank you for the nice day today. You even fooled the TV weather man.”
Lois, age 9 “Dear God: Please help me in school. I need help in spelling, adding, history, geography and writing. I don’t need help in anything else.”
David age 7 “Dear God: I need a raise in my allowance. Could you have one of your angels tell my father? Thank you.”
Diane age 8 “Dear God; I am saying my prayers for me and my brother, Billy, because Billy is six months old and he can’t do anything but sleep and wet his diapers.”
I think that raises the question, “Why should we pray?” Five reasons. First, we are encouraged and commanded us to pray. Philippians 4:6 says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” Colossians 4:2 says, “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.” And 1 Thessalonians 5:17 calls us to “pray without ceasing.” I could go on and on but the point is that God wants us to pray. He wants to hear from us. He wants to talk with us. He wants to speak His heart’s desire to us but that can only happen when we pray. Second, Jesus equipped us to pray through the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer appears in the Sermon on the Mount. In the middle of His sermon, where Jesus is focusing on teaching his followers how to live, He turns His attention to the subject of prayer. He not only begins to teach his followers how to pray but by interrupting his sermon, he’s telling them that prayer is meant to be a part of how they live their daily lives. And so Jesus gives us a model for prayer.
Third, God uses our prayers to advance His purposes. This is why we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…” When we pray for God’s will and God’s work, we enhance it and speed its completion. Prayer is what ensures the triumph of the Gospel and the establishment of God’s kingdom here on earth. When God answers our prayers, we have been used as instruments in forwarding His purposes! It is not that our prayers change God's plans - but in a wonderful way, He uses them as a powerful means to accomplish them. God harnesses the prayers of His people to His unchangeable plans as one means by which He will bring them to pass! So it’s through prayer, we become co-laborers and partners in His mission. Every great movement of the Gospel was bathed in prayer making prayer an invariable and necessary condition for any new initiative in the work of God.
Fourth, prayer is a spiritual weapon. Paul reminds his readers that we are engaged in a war, a war between the armies of heaven and those of hell. The struggle that is taking place with them is our struggle because we are a part of God’s army and God has enlisted us to fight this war and our most powerful spiritual weapon is prayer. It enables us to engage the powers and principalities and fight for the kingdom of God. Ephesians 6:12-13, 18 says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm….With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.”
Fifth, Prayer develops in us an attitude of dependence and trust in God and that places us in a position for receiving God’s grace. Prayer is a direct appeal to God for help and for grace. Prayer enables us to commune with God who is the source of all grace. It not only in an attitude to receive grace; it actually leads us to seek grace because we’re now in a position to receive it. Jesus expressly commanded, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you" (Matt. 7: 7-8). We are "directed to ask as a means of receiving; to seek in order to find the grace of God and to knock to open the floodgates of God’s grace. When grace enters our lives, we are empowered to do the work of the kingdom as Jesus promised to do even greater things than Him but we are also transformed in heart and mind to be more like Jesus. Thus, prayer is the most powerful means of grace!
Sixth, it’s a Means of Grace. John Wesley considered prayer an essential part of Christian living. He called it the most important and powerful means of grace because prayer empowers us for ministry and following God. This is why Jesus so often pulled away from the crowds and the demands of ministry to pray and spend time with the Father. He had a regular ebb and flow in his life moving from ministry amongst the people the and disciples and then withdrawing to spend time with the Father and then back. One informs and empowers the other.
So what is prayer? It’s waiting. We are to wait for God’s answer. This may be the most challenging of all. We live in a fastfood, mocriwave have it now society. Wiating on anything is difficult for us, even for the light to change to green. But in prayer, we are to ask and then "wait for the blessings of God in prayer," persuaded of the reliability of his positive promise that he will hear and answer our prayers (Matt. 6:6). In doing so, we are trusting in God’s perfect timing for our lives, for God says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways,” and “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
So how do I pray when an answer is being delayed? You keep on praying until one of three things happens: 1. You get the answer. When you get it then you can stop praying. That’s obvious. 2. You get the assurance that you're going to get it. Then you know it’s as good as money in the bank. 3. You keep praying until God reveals to you that it's not His will. When you figure that out, you become uncomfortable praying about it and you don't have any peace so you stop praying. The point is, when God seems to remain silent, when your prayers seem to go unanswered, it’s not because God is asleep on the job. Take time to consider all that He is doing to prepare you for His answer. Before God works on your problems, He wants to work on you. But he also wants to accomplish his will in his perfect timing.
Prayer isn't just talking to God, it is also listening to the voice of God in our lives. Someone once said that the reason God gave us two ears and one mouth is that we are to listen to each other twice as much as we are to speak. The same should true in our relationship with God. In fact, Pastor John Maxwell takes it a step further and says that we should listen to God in prayer 90% of the time and talk only 10% of the time. What about you? How much time do you spend talking to God compared to how much time you spend time listening to God. We can hear God's voice in many different ways: through the words of Scripture, through our minds or impressions, through the words others like, writers, family, friends, and loved ones or even enemies. There are many ways of hearing the voice of God. Prayer is about opening oneself to that voice and allowing God to speak to us, wherever we are and whatever our needs may be.
How can your prayers have the greatest impact? Four keys. First, bring the problem to God's attention immediately. Don’t let it stew and don’t try to take matters into your own hand. Don’t talk to friends first. Give it to God. Second is supplication. Supplication is a very honest and clear admission that tells God that you need his help. When I normally think of prayer, I think about my normal conversation with God; such as: Lord, bless my family today, keep them safe, thank you for loving me and saving me." When you think of supplication, think about the times you cry out to God because someone is hurt, or seriously ill. Third, focus on God and not on the problem. Keep in mind that our prayers are always to be God centered. And always keep the problem God centered and not problem centered or you centered. In other words, ask for God’s will to be done rather than your will. Fourth is thanksgiving. Give thanks because you know the following about our great and mighty and glorious God.
• That you can come to the Father with your problems anytime
• That he is concerned about you and loves you unconditionally
• That he said that he would help you
• That he will see you through this problem
• That he has the power to solve this problem
• That He is 100% trustworthy
God is just waiting for you to talk to him. Yes, your God is just waiting for you to talk to him and he desperately wants to talk with you. God wants to your heart His healing words, His will, His hopes and dreams and His wisdom. And all we need to do is ask and he will not only guide us but he will change us.
UM Pastor Scott McDermott tells of teaching his congregation the acrostic ACTS: ask meaningful questions, care for others by listening to them, tell them what Jesus has done and show what Jesus looked liked. He was riding with his staff from the airport in Kansas City to a conference at COR. He sat in front seat on the way to the church and began asking open questions about their driver’s life. He discovered that the driver’s name was Tom. Are you married? He is divorced. Kids? He had a 12 year old son at the age of 40. Do you go to church? Tom seldom went to church. Do you pray? He really didn’t because how could he ask God for anything when he didn’t really live for him. He said he felt it was all too hard, and that was against his nature. His nature would have to change if he lived for God. So to pray that would be hypocritical. He asked him if he spoke to God. He said he did. He said thank you to God for his healthy son. Scott told him that was good.
The Scott asked him to think of a time when he saw or experienced God. He spoke of watching a St. Jude’s commercial and thinking that was God. Scott asked what that felt like?. He paused and said it felt good inside. I asked him: what do you think that feeling is? He said he didn’t know. I asked him again...what do you think that is? He said he didn’t know, this time with this grin on his face. Then I told him about St. John and what he wrote in Revelation 3.20. How Jesus stands at the door of his church, and if anyone hears his voice and opens the door, he will come into him and eat with him and he with me. I said, “I think you are hearing Jesus knock at your heart’s door. Let me ask you a question, If I told you there was prayer you could pray that would get you closer to God, would you pray it?” He thought and then said yes. I said here is the prayer. “Jesus, come into my life.” He said, “That’s easy.” Do you want to pray that prayer? I asked. He said yes. I said, well go ahead and pray it. He paused. Then he said, “Jesus come into my life.” I asked him did you feel anything. He said, “Yes. I could it a little bit.” He pointed to his chest. I said, I felt it too. I told him Jesus changes our nature, the areas of our life that need to change. Three days later when the Conference had come to an end, they called for an airport van and lo and behold who pulls up to take them? Tom. As they drove to the airport, he asked Tom if he had been praying and he said yes, all the time while I am driving. And how do you feel? “I feel different. I feel as if Jesus is here right with me. I feel like a new person in Christ.” And that’s the power and purpose of prayer.
