THE PROCESS OF PRAYER
Luke 11:5-10
Have you ever wondered why God wants us to “pray without ceasing?” Why is it that Jesus spent such extended times in prayer, often praying alone all night before making major decisions. Why did Jesus have to pray 3 hours in the garden of Gethsemane before the angels ministered to Him? Why did Daniel pray for 21 days before the angel came?
If God already knows the need and already has the answer, then why can’t we come to God with the same “fast food” mentality with which we order lunch. “God, I would like the #3 blessing, hold the trials, and super-sized – to go!”
Now, there are many reasons why God may want us to pray: testing, timing, relationship, or devotion. But all those things seem to beg the real question. If God can do anything, and if He has a plan for the ages and if He has empowered the church to spread the gospel throughout the world, then won’t He – CAN”T HE just do it whether I pray or not??
I have come to understand that prayer is the truly untapped resource of the church. Yes, God has a plan for the church, but the plan will only be accomplished when His people ask Him to do it. God works through the prayers of His people --- AND SELDOM WITHOUT THEM. While God can do anything He desires to do, He CHOOSES to do only the things He is asked, and that only as the power of the kingdom is released through the prayers of God’s children.
Prayer is not as much an action as it is a process. Prayer is never to be a one-time request or a sporadic “Oh, by the way” with the understanding that God now has the needed information and we should just wait for the answer to come.
In our passage today, Jesus is responding to the disciples desire to know how to pray. In His response, Jesus shows that
the Process of Prayer is:
I. A PROCESS OF SHAMELESS PERSISTENCE
A. It is the Persistence of the asker that causes action.
1. As we see in the parable
2. “Persistence” is literally “shamelessness”
a. brazen tenacity; determined perseverance; relentless diligence (all as positive virtues)
b. The petitioner is “shameless” in his willingness to ask and keep on asking.
c. “I know you have what I need. I know you want to give it to me. I will just keep on asking until it comes.”
Note: “Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the LORD in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.” Isaiah 62:6-7
Note: KJV translates the word as “importunity” which Webster‘s defines as “urgent or persistent in asking or demanding; insistent; refusing to be denied; annoyingly urgent”
Note: E.M. Bounds writes, “Importunate prayer never faints nor grows weary; it is never discouraged; it never yields to cowardice, but is buoyed up and sustained by a hope that knows no despair, and a faith which will not let go. Importunate praying has patience to wait and strength to continue. It never prepares itself to quit praying, and declines to rise from its knees until an answer is received.” (The Complete Works of E.M. Bounds on Prayer, p. 44)
B. As seen in the progression of ASK – SEEK – KNOCK
1. Present active tense meaning “continually ask”, etc.
2. The promise is to those who shamelessly and persistently ask, seek, and knock.
Note: Bounds calls ASK-SEEK-KNOCK “the ascending rounds in the ladder of successful prayer.” (p. 44)
3. Perhaps we might remember it as:
a. Asking for specific needs
b. Seeking it continually and fervently
c. Knocking on the doors of promise until they are opened.
II. BASED ON FAITH IN GOD’S NATURE
A. God is obligated to answer prayer because of:
1. His obligations to us as His children
2. His relation to us as our Father
3. His desire to perform His will through us
Note: Brad Young in The Parables writes: “The problem with prayer is God…The supreme barrier one faces during prayer is not the words or the liturgy, but rather the way one understands the nature of God.” (p. 42)
Note: We so often pray defensively (“Lord, don’t let us fail”) when what He desires is for us to understand His nature and pray offensively (“Lord, we claim the victory!”).
B. The purpose of the parable is to demonstrate the nature of God.
1. The rules of hospitality in Jesus’ day made the man inside the house OBLIGATED to meet his neighbor’s need, just as the neighbor was OBLIGATED to provide for the unexpected guest.
2. In fact, the very reputation of the man in the house rested on how he responded to his friend’s request.
Note: In 1st century Israel, the houses were small and close together. Even with the shutters closed, the friends request being call out through his neighbor’s window would have been heard by (and awakened) other families close by. Many people were listening to this conversation. In the morning the whole town might know of the nights events and the man’s actions.
Note: Jesus disciples would be shocked at the neighbor’s refusal to provide bread to his friend. It was the shock value of the “twist” that made the parable teachable.
3. The man in the house relents to the needs of his neighbor only because of the neighbor’s shameless persistence.
4. The point of the parable is found in verse 13,
“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”
that is, that God, by nature is OBLIGATED to give us not just what we need, but “exceedingly beyond all that we ask or think”!
Note: E.M. Bounds writes “Laxity, faintheartedness, impatience, timidity will be fatal to our prayers. Awaiting the onset of our importunity and insistence, is the Father’s heart, the Father’s hand, the Father’s infinite power, the Father’s infinite willingness to hear and give to his children.”
5. God’s kingdom is designed to be victorious and His church was established to be the mechanism through which the victory will come.
C. The catalyst of shameless persistence is having a heart that seeks for God’s heart.
1. More than the METHOD of praying
2. But rather the MOTIVE of praying that seeks HIM and HIS WILL, and desires to see HIS KINGDOM come.
“As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;” Psalm 42:1-2a
“And He said to them, “Pray then in this way…Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:9-10
III. THAT RELEASES THE POWER OF GOD’S KINGDOM
A. God desires persistence in prayer
1. Not because we must PERSUADE Him to act
2. Not because we must EARN His favor
3. Not because we must SATISFY His need for attention
4. But because it is God’s plan to release the power of the kingdom through the prayers of His people.
“Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us” Ephesians 3:20 (NASB)
“Now to the One who is able to do beyond all things, superabundantly beyond and over and above those things that we are asking for ourselves and considering, in the measure of the power which is operative in us” Eph 3:20 (Wuest’s expanded translation)
“Thus the saint determines what God is able to do for him…The saint limits the working of God in and through him by the degree of his yieldedness to the Spirit.” (Wuest, vol. 1, Eph-Col, p. 92)
B. As illustrated by the prayer of Elijah (1 Kings 18:1, 41-45)
James 5:17-18 “Elijah was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.”
1. God had already promised the restore the rain to the land of Israel.
2. Elijah prayed once and nothing happened
3. Elijah prayed SIX more times before the clouds began to form.
4. Elijah’s posture in prayer was one of:
a. Humility
b. Intensity
c. Birthing
Note: Why did he have to pray 7 times? Because prayer is a process! It took seven episodes of prayer for God’s previously determined will to become reality.
C. As illustrated by the symbolism of Revelation 8:2-5
1. The prayers of the saints were collected in the censer bowls
2. The fire (power of God) was taken from the altar and added to the prayers
3. God’s ability fueled by the prayers of the saints caused the thunder, lightning, and earthquake.
“In answer to our requests, He sends His angels to get our bowls to mix with the fire of the altar, but there isn’t enough in our bowls to meet the need! We might blame God or think it’s not His will or that His word must not really mean what it says. The reality is that sometimes He cannot do what we’ve asked because we have not given Him enough power in our prayer times to get it done.” (Dutch Sheets , Intercessory Prayer, p. 209)
Conclusion:
In last week’s sermon, James reminded us that we don’t have because we don’t ask. What we ask for is what we will receive. What will it take for you to have faith enough in the power and plan of God to become a Shameless petitioner. Does your heart long for the heart of God? Are you ready to see the kingdom of God released!
“Give me Scotland, or I die!” – John Knox
“I fear John Knox’s prayers more than an army of ten thousand men.” - Mary, Queen of Scotland
