Prayer Course, Session IV 3rd October 2010
Jesus Teaches on Prayer
I. Jesus, the Man of Prayer
In Mark 1:35-37, we read, “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, ‘Everyone is looking for you.’” It did not take the disciples very long to see that prayer was a very important part of Jesus’ life. He modeled prayer for them. Later on they would ask him to teach them to pray, and as they did, he gave them a prayer to pray, and to base their prayers on.
We looked at that prayer the past two weeks, and today we will look at some of the other teachings Jesus gave about prayer during the days of his earthly ministry. But first, I do want to note something one of the class members shared with me during Coffee Hour last week: that is, if the Lord gave us this prayer, it is a prayer that he wants to answer. He wants his name to be hallowed. His kingdom is coming, and his will is going to be done. He will supply us with daily bread, and he will most definitely forgive us our sins – and empower us to forgive others. He will deliver us from the evil one, enabling his saints to persevere to the end. The requests in this prayer are requests that God wants to answer.
While the Lord’s Prayer is one of the most important part of Jesus’ teachings on prayer, but it is not the only one. There are other things he says over the course of his earthly ministry, and today we are going to look at several of these teachings. They are scattered a few verses at a time through the Gospels.
II. “In My Name” and “Ask Whatever You Will”
I will begin with some words on prayer that Jesus spoke at the end of his earthly ministry. During the Upper Room Discourse in John’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” (Jn 16:24) That is one of several places in this discourse where Jesus says we are to pray in his name. His statement is why we say, “in Jesus’ name, Amen” at the end of prayers – or in many written prayers, “through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever, amen.”
But what does it mean to pray “in Jesus’ name”? How many of you have ever wondered? Does anyone have an idea of why Jesus would ask us to pray in his name?
It is important that we pray in Jesus’ name for a number of reasons. However, I am going to mention two reasons that are not good reasons at all. One is tradition – we do it because we have always done it and we can’t imagine not ending prayer without “In Jesus’ name, amen.” I have been to some public events where prayer has been offered, and the prayer is concluded with “in your most holy name, amen.” Sometimes that is done by someone who does not wish to offend non-Christians who may be present, and sometimes it is done by someone who is a Unitarian – he does not believe that Jesus is divine, but since Unitarianism is a Christian heresy, he still has the lingering ghost of an idea that prayers need to be offered in the name of someone.
Tradition is one poor reason to end a prayer in Jesus’ name, and superstition is another poor reason – the idea that your prayer will not be answered because you did not fulfill the proper formula. The idea that a person has to follow a specific form in praying or else the prayer will not be heard reduces prayer from what it is supposed to be to something more like magic. It is very easy to think of the purpose of prayer as asking for things that we want – and if we think that way, it is easy to fall into regarding prayer as magic or something close to it. I can remember times when a church event was being planned, and we would talk about the weather – and someone would say, “Let Charlie deal with that; prayer is his department.” I was often at a loss for words – I did not want to be harsh, but I wanted to say something like, “I am a pastor, not a witch doctor!” My prayers do not have greater “pull” with God because I do pray regularly, and certainly not because I have been ordained. God wants to hear the prayers of the littlest child as well as of the greatest saints – for God receives all those who offer prayers on the same basis – the shed blood of Christ.
And that is the main reason we pray in Jesus’ name: because we only have standing to approach God in him. He was our representative on the cross, shedding his blood as an atoning sacrifice on our behalf. Because he died, we live and have been adopted as children of God. I forget where I first heard the saying, but theologically speaking, we pray to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Prayer is trinitarian, for all three persons of the Trinity are involved when we pray. We can pray to each person of the Trinity directly, of course, but for the most part, when we pray, we speak to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name because we are able to enter the Father’s presence only by being in Christ.
Furthermore, we pray in Jesus’ name because we are asking him to pray for us. Jon will be talking more about that next week, so I will not go into it, but when we pray in Jesus’ name, we are asking him to pray for us.
In the Upper Room discourse, Jesus tells us that we are to pray in his name. He also makes a remarkable promise. In Jn 14:13, Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” A little later on, in Jn 15:7, Jesus repeats this promise: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” He repeats this promise again in v 16: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” Jesus had also made this promise earlier. In Mt 18:19-20, Jesus told his disciples, “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Whatever we ask in Jesus name, especially if we can get someone to agree with us and pray for the same thing will be done for us. That is quite a promise, isn’t it? There are those who have taken this to mean that prayer is a blank check – all they have to do is to decide what they want, and then pray in Jesus’ name, and they will receive what they have decided they should have. If you want something, then all you have to do is to name it, and then claim it in Jesus’ name.
However – those who think as I have just outlined have made more than a few major errors. Jesus had no intention of giving us a “blank check,” such that we could ask for anything that popped into our heads. Jesus did want to encourage us to pray big and bold prayers – for the Kingdom. I said in our first session that the purpose of prayer is not getting things from God, but rather fellowship with God, where we open our hearts to him and enjoy time with him. He has adopted us a his children, through Christ, and it is his desire that we bear the image of God as we did before the Fall – the same image that is seen perfectly in Jesus Christ. God’s purpose is not to make our voyage through life a trip on a cruise ship. Certainly, Jesus tells us to pray expectantly for our daily bread – but before we get to praying for our physical needs, we pray for God’s name to be known and honored, for his Kingdom to come, and for his will to be done.
John 15:7 has an important qualifier in its promise of bountiful answers to prayer: “If you abide in me and my Word abides in you…” To abide in Christ is constantly to depend upon him – to remember and rejoice in his sacrificial love and to prize him above all else. As we abide in Christ, we also drink in his Word as life and strength. It soaks into our hearts and minds, and his Word shapes us. If we are abiding in him and his Word is abiding in us – then Jesus can safely promise to do what we ask, because he knows our hearts are set on his glory and the extension of his Kingdom, not on what this world, seen apart from him, seeks. “Ask whatever you will” is not a blank check. It is a promise those whose hearts are set on the Kingdom of God.
The promise of “if any two of you agree” in Mt 18 has an important context. Mt 18:15-20 deal with what to do when a brother or sister in the church have sinned against you, so the setting for “two or three gathered together” is not simply any gathering of Christians, but two or three people who have met to deal with a sin. It is a promise to the one who has the difficult responsibility of telling one of his fellow Christians, “When you did “x”, you committed a sin against me. Can you repent and apologize?” It is also a promise to the one who has committed the perceived offense that the Lord will be present in the conversation. Both persons need to be aware of, and open to, that presence. It is also a promise that, should the situation require the further response of including a few others or the entire congregation, Jesus will be present to help them come to a good conclusion. The promise of “if any two of you agree” means that if the original pair of people are able to reach an agreement and to come to a place of repentance and forgiveness, the Lord will grant them a restored relationship and help them to grow. It is also a promise that should the situation require the participation of more people, the Lord will help them in the process and will guide them into a good and beneficial course, if and as they depend upon him. What Jesus wanted his disciples to agree on and to pray for was for good relationships, in which offenses would be forgiven and become a springboard for spiritual growth as sin is dealt with graciously within the Church.
The promise does have a larger application to any gathering of Christians. The Lord will be present with his people when they have assembled in his name. The promise also points to the important of consensus within the body when they plan and when they pray. A divided congregation needs to come to terms about its lack of consensus before it can proceed. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are always in agreement, and if we are to reflect the image of God, we need to be in consensus as well. This is a huge topic in itself, and I cannot develop it much more this morning. I will say that there will always be differences within the Church and within any congregation. Some are differences that do not really matter, some are differences that are actually helpful, and some are differences that matter a great deal and must be dealt with or the mission of the congregation will be harmed. At the very least, we always need the wisdom of the Lord Jesus to discern what kind of differences we are dealing with. And if there is hurt and sin involved, we need his presence in order to repent of what is harmful and to do what is good and helpful for the relationships within the body of believers.
III. “Ask, Seek, Knock, for the Father Gives Good Things”
Jesus teaches on prayer in a number of other places in the Gospels. He gave the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, and also in Luke 11 after the disciples had asked him, “Lord, teach us to pray.” In both cases, he soon told his hearers that they should pray with expectation. In Mt 7:7-11, he says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
These verses are echoed in Luke 11, although with one slight difference. Luke says that the Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. I have no doubt that Jesus often repeated his teachings with slight variations during the days of his public ministry. Any one who teaches does that – and it would be all the more the case in a society where there was no mass media to capture every word spoken. There is no essential difference – the Holy Spirit is simply the best of all possible good gifts.
One commentator I read says that the “ask, seek, knock” refers to increasing levels of intensity of purpose. One is serious in asking, still more concerned in seeking, and almost desperate in banging on the door. At any rate, Jesus commends persistence in actively seeking a gift from God. If human fathers, as sinful as they are, seek what is good for their children, how much more true is that of the Lord, who is goodness in its purest form?
In my first presentation, I said that God never answers a request with a “No.” His replies to our petitions are either, “Yes,” “Later,” or “I have something better in mind.” I think that there is another possibility as well – “I have something better in mind, but it will not come until later.” God promises to give us the right thing at the right time. Jesus wants us to be assured that his Father, who is now our adoptive Father, wants the best for us and will give what is best.
But what is “the best”? God giving us what is best for us is not always giving us what we ask for. His promise is that he will restore in us the full image of God, that in the end, we will be like Jesus in our character and faith.
How many of you have read The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom? That book is a remarkable story of faith in action during the hard days of WWII. First the ten Boom family took in Jews to hide them from the Nazis, and God protected them and enabled many Jews to get to safety. Then their work was discovered, and the family was arrested. Corrie’s father died almost immediately and the family was scattered and imprisoned. Corrie and her sister Betsy were eventually placed in the dreadful concentration camp at Ravensbruck. Miraculously, they still had a Bible, and were able to do ministry among their fellow prisoners. Astonishing things happened, such as the seemingly bottomless small bottle of vitamins that increased their resistance to disease. Under ordinary circumstances, it would have lasted a week among the prisoners, but it kept on providing daily doses for many weeks. Corrie and Betsy learned to give thanks to God even for the fleas that bit them – for those fleas kept the guards away.
Both sisters were in prison, and both looked to God in faith. Betsy died in prison, however, while Corrie did not. I am sure that both sisters prayed to survive the war. Did God answer only one sister’s prayer? No, he answered both: to Betsy, he said, “I have something better – you are coming home to me.” To Corrie, he said, “Yes – and I will give you a ministry that will touch the hearts of many.”
In Jeremiah 17:7-8, we read, “"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
When we trust the Lord with all we are and have, we will be aware of our circumstances – but our happiness and contentment do not come from our circumstances, but rather from the Lord. The tree that is planted by a stream can endure a drought because its roots do not depend on rain for water, but on the stream. In the same way, when we are firmly planted in the Lord, we can survive in adverse circumstances, because the Lord sustains us. That does not mean our circumstances do not affect us, for they certainly do. But it does not mean that our circumstances determine our happiness and contentment in the end, but rather God upholds us and our hearts rejoice that we know him and can enjoy him.
Joni Eareckson Tada broke her neck in a swimming accident when she was 17 years old. She became a quadriplegic. She had grown up in a Christian family and had made a profession of faith. That faith was now severely tested. There were days when she wanted to die. She would have committed suicide – but of course was physically unable to do so. Later one, she determined to make the best of it. She first became an artist, holding her pen or brush in her mouth. Later on, she became an author and speaker. She is now about 60 years old, one of the longest surviving quadriplegics in the country. And she now says that she thanks God that she broke her neck!
Why would she give thanks for that?
She says that, looking back, her faith as a 17 year old was a shallow faith. Left to herself, she would have had God as a part of her life, but only a part. With a broken neck, she had to depend upon God and his mercy and power on a day to day, even moment to moment basis. It took her some time to recognize that, but she has written that her stubbornness and independence would have remained unchecked unless she had come to radical dependence upon God because she had no resources of her own. Joni Eareckson Tada is rooted in the Lord. She knows her circumstances, but they are not the determining factor in her happiness and contentment.
I know that God does heal people, because I have seen it happen. But God does not heal everyone who asks for healing. I have pondered that for a long time, and my provisional thought is that God heals some to show his power – and he does not heal others to show that knowing him is sufficient for joy. God is enough.
We are not guaranteed to get exactly what we ask for when we make our requests to God – but we are guaranteed to get what we need to know God better and to become more and more like Jesus.
IV. Persist in Prayer
In Luke 11 and Luke 18, Jesus tells two parables to encourage his followers to persist in prayer. The first is the story of a man who has an unexpected guest arrive late in the evening. He has no food to offer the man, so he asks his neighbor for some bread. Hospitality was very important in the ancient Near East; if he could not put something before his guest, he would fail as a host. His need was great. Jesus notes that even if the neighbor was already in bed and had no desire at all to get up, he would eventually give the man some bread, if only to stop the pounding on the door. The second parable is similar to the first: a widow was suffering wrong from someone, and asked a judge to hear her case. The judge, however, was corrupt, and only took cases when he felt like it. He had no heart for justice. The woman persisted in asking for a hearing. At last the corrupt judge gave in. He was worn down by the repeated requests of the widow.
Jesus wanted his followers to know that if even earthly people, as selfish and stubborn as they are, will give in to persistent requests, how much more will our loving Father give to us as we persist in prayer?
In Hebrews 11 we have what some call “The Bible’s Hall of Fame for Faith.” Hebrews 11:35-39 says “Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated – of whom the world was not worthy – wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised”
These were people who were longing for the Kingdom of God, but who never saw the Kingdom. But they trusted God and acted as citizens of the Kingdom of God, giving him their trust and loyalty in the face of opposition. Some saw remarkable things, such as the woman of Zarephath, whose son was raised from the dead through Elijah, or Daniel, who was preserved from death in the lion’s den. They knew the reality of that statement in Jeremiah, that those who sink their roots into God will be like trees planted by the river, able to bloom and produce fruit even if there was a drought. They prayed, and many saw extraordinary answers to prayer – but none saw the fullness of God’s Kingdom. Neither have we. We are still in the interim period, in which God is calling a people to himself and forming them as his own children.
We are to pray in this interim time – we are to pray for God’s Kingdom to come, and we are to pray for our physical needs in our day to day lives, and to pray for our spiritual growth and health. Even as we do, we pray knowing that the Kingdom is not yet here, and so all will not be perfect – unless the Lord arrives soon!
Jesus wanted to have his followers persist in prayer because he knew that life in this fallen world is difficult and we may become discouraged. There are many miracles recorded in the Old Testament, and we may be tempted to think that they were an almost daily occurrence. But if you look at the timeline of the Old Testament, the events it records from Abraham up to the return of the exiles from Babylon took place over a period of 1600 or 1700 years. While we cannot say that the miracles recorded in Scripture were the only ones that happened in that time, the time span still lets us know that dramatic miracles can easily be far apart. God seems to work through means and in quiet ways far more than he does by very obvious miracles. Nevertheless, we are to persevere in prayer. God knows the best timing, and he knows the best series of events. Trust means that we hang on, assured by the character of God, the wisdom of God, and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus that God is for us and that he will do what will bring honor and glory to him, and joy and thanksgiving to us.
God wants us to pray because he wants to enjoy fellowship with us and through that fellowship to produce in us his own image. He will grant us what we need, and that includes daily bread, forgiveness of sins, and spiritual protection.
The Psalms are the Bible’s prayer book and hymnal. They were used in the Temple worship and later in the synagogue. Some were songs of praise and rejoicing, some were prayers of confession, some were meditations on God’s goodness. In many we see the psalmist pouring his heart out before the Lord – perhaps in joy, perhaps in sorrow.
Here is Psalm 13, a short prayer for rescue:
How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O LORD my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am(I) shaken.
But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.
This psalm begins in anguish. It ends in promise of faith, because the psalmist has opened his heart to the Lord, and expressing to God his fears and pain, he has found relief. He does not have to hide, and so he is able to remember the goodness and strength of the Lord.
When we are in anguish, wracked with fear, anxiety, guilt, or grief, it can be easy to say, “I am a Christian. I should not feel this way.” A person can think that they should not be feeling the emotions that they have, and so try to hide those emotions. The trouble is that when one hides emotions, they gain more power over you than if you recognize them. We live in a culture where feelings are often taken to be the ultimate reality, so there are certainly some people who wallow in their feelings or take their emotions to be the one sure-fire guide in life.
Emotions are real, and we ignore them or try to control them at our peril. One the other hand, emotions are not ultimate reality. Our feelings tell us important things about ourselves and our responses to what is going on around us. If we can recognize our emotions, which may be hard to do with the less pleasant ones, we can then look more fully at our hearts, and learn some important things. I have found that when I am angry, there is really some fear behind that anger, and I am try to use anger to fight off the fear. Having see that, I am now more able to see what my fears may be and to take those fears to God. I can then admit my fears and express my trust that God is my ultimate protector. Instead of telling God, “Please take away my anger,” I can offer to him the source of that anger. As I do so, he can then affirm to me through his Word that he will stand as my protector no matter what. My fear is lessened – and I am also far less likely to get angry.
Jesus told us to be persistent in praying, because God will respond to our prayers. I am convinced that one reason God wants us to be persistent is so that we will pour out our hearts to him, even if some of what we may pour out is different than what we think a Christian is supposed to feel or do. The chief purpose of prayer is fellowship with God. God will do things as we make requests of him – but the main purpose of prayer is not to get God to do things, but to enjoy him with openness of heart. As we fellowship with God, we will give him more and more of what is in our hearts – our hopes, our fears, our joys, our sorrows. In the process, we learn more and more about ourselves and where we need to change and some reasons why change is difficult. In prayer, we build our relationship with our heavenly Father – who truly fathers us by helping us to grow up, spiritually.
Jesus tell us to pray in his name – for it is in his name that we have acceptance before God the Father. He wants us to soak ourselves in his presence and in his Word, so that we can know him better and in so knowing, ask for those things he is planning to do. God can thus say to us, “Ask for whatever you want,” knowing that our hearts are longing for what he longs to give. We can ask with positive anticipation, for we know that our heavenly Father always gives good things – and we can pray with persistence, knowing that our concerns will be treasured and that the Lord will help us to grow in him as we pray.
Thus we can say with the psalmist, “But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.”
I have a little homework to suggest to you. It comes from an idea that the Rev Sam Shoemaker had about fifty years ago. He was an Episcopal pastor in Pittsburgh and he started what is known as “the Pittsburgh Experiment.” He challenged the businessmen of the city to pray for 31 days – asking God to bless their businesses, and to bless their enemies. And remarkable things happened as they prayed.
We stand at the beginning of October, and I would like you to consider praying for the next 5 weeks, until Nov 7. Perhaps you already have your time with God each day, but if not, I want to suggest three possible ways:
1. Pray for your major occupation each day, and pray for those you do not appreciate or who may be actively seeking to bring harm to you.
2. At the end of each day, or perhaps at the beginning of the next day, write a few sentences, recording the greatest blessing you experienced that day, and also the greatest challenge you faced.
3. If you are married and are not doing so already, set aside five minutes each day to pray together.
Perhaps in November, we can share some of what happens!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment