Bible Class: The Necessity of Prayer

Good morning,

Since I’ve been asked by the elders to teach on the role of deacons this week, our morning class will be different: I’ve been asked to teach one lesson from our Wednesday even series on prayer so that you can all have a taste of what we're doing on Wednesday evenings.

Introducing this series

So let me begin by introducing this series: “prayer” is one of our greatest privileges as it is the means by which we can enter behind the veil of this physical world into the very presence of God. Jesus presented and exampled prayer as one of the primary disciplines that characterize the Christian life. In other words, at the heart of Christian life is our relationship with God! So prayer has always been close to the heart of my ministry: in everything we do, we want to know God!

Now I had two choices for today’s class: I could teach the next class in this series, which would be very nice for those of you who have been with us through this series, but, would also be very confusing for everyone else; so I’ve decided to teach the first class in this series again, both to give those who weren’t there a taste of what this series is really about, and because I actually believe this particular lesson is one that we need to hear more than once!

Now this series has three objectives:

Inspire our desire for prayer

Call us to be faithful in prayer

Cultivate a deeper prayer life

So I want to begin with a quote from A.W. Tozer:

The Biblical teaching that God’s work through the Church can be accomplished only by the energizing of the Holy Spirit is very hard for us humans to accept.

~ A.W. Tozer, from Tragedy in the Church

One of the hallmarks of authentic Christian theology is that it always begins with God. Too often we make things about us. For example, we might begin speaking about the “necessity of prayer” by talking about how “the secret of all failure is our failure in secret prayer.” And this statement, taken from one of the giants of the faith, is absolutely true! But this is not the foremost truth of the necessity of prayer because it begins with us. And the things of eternity never begins with us.

Unfortunately, we want things to happen on our time-table and according to our expectations: we see good things we want to do and real needs that we want to meet, and we set out to do them on our own. Prayer often becomes nothing more than a divine emergency-hotline because we think ourselves to be in control most of the time; we think we are sufficient in ourselves to handle most of what life hands us, and so we reserve prayer for those things we think are beyond us.

So, to accomplish what we’re setting out to do in this class, we begin speaking about the “necessity of prayer” by speaking about God:

Read intentionally > > >

John 15:7–8 CSB

7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

Prayer is necessary because it's the means by which God displays his glory independently of human strength and accomplishment.

Those who pray the most are those who recognize their own personal insufficiency even in the smallest of things; they seek God because they know that they are wholly inadequate for the weight of glory that now abides with them through the Holy Spirit, and so have become entirely dependent upon him for all things. When this happens, we pray often and see God’s glory displayed everywhere in our lives!

Consider how often churches talk about getting people excited and engaged: all the advertising we can do, or exciting programs we can run, will never generate the kind of energy and personal investment in the things of God that comes when God displays his glory by answering the prayers of faith that God’s people pray by the Holy Spirit.

Unfortunately, when churches talk about these things, they often unwittingly have in mind the church-program! I think almost no church ever sets out to do this, but it’s often the case that by removing our dependence upon God displaying his glory in ways that only God can do, what we are attempting to get people invested in are the things that we can control ourselves.

Qualification > > >

Now I need to stop for a moment so that I’m not misunderstood here: I’m not taking any shots at the many daily-activities of the church. I’m greatly encouraged by all the selfless work you are doing in this Church; all of this is most wonderful and should be commended! All of what you are doing and more are the works of the Kingdom by which God is glorified.

As Jesus said:

Matthew 5:16 CSB

16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

What I’m talking about is the difference between busying ourselves with things that we can manage on our own versus the kind of dependence upon God to display his glory in what we do in ways that only he can do. I’m talking about the difference between being satisfied with what we can manage on our own and wanting to see what only God can accomplish!

This is why God himself must be the primary impetus and necessity of our prayers.

E.M. Bounds put it this way:

Faith does the impossible because it brings God to undertake for us, and nothing is impossible with God… Prayer projects faith on God, and [in turn] God upon the world.

~ E. M. Bounds, The Necessity of Prayer

When we talk about “prayers of faith”, we’re talking about prayers that have fixed their trust and confidence for their content upon God himself; we have in mind prayers that entrust to God the matters of life and the sacred issues of the heart.

Jesus places faith at the heart of prayer:

Mark 11:24 CSB

24 Therefore I tell you, everything you pray and ask for—believe that you have received it and it will be yours.

For this reason, because “faith” is at the heart of prayer itself, the necessity of prayer must begin with God since God is the object of our faith: God is the necessary reason why we pray!

Now I want to turn to consider God’s perspective on prayer:

Isaiah 59:16 CSB

16 He saw that there was no man— he was amazed that there was no one interceding; so his own arm brought salvation, and his own righteousness supported him.

“God was amazed.” That is a very striking thought, isn’t it? The very boldness of the idea of what “amazes God” out to hold our attention. We shouldn’t too quickly pass by such statements in Scripture, which is one of the reasons I place such importance upon the discipline of “Biblical meditation”. We out to consider and weigh these things deeply!

God was amazed that there was no intercessor in Israel. Given all the advantages that God had given to Israel, it was striking enough to make God “wonder” that no one had taken those advantages up to intercede for their salvation. Yet, we might look upon Israel’s condition and observe that all this happened before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and his dispensation of the Holy Spirit upon all believers.

Before Jesus came with “grace upon grace” and “grace full of power”; before the Spirit was dispensed to himself “make intercession for us” when we don’t know how; even before the many precious promises that Jesus made securing God’s faithfulness to answer our prayers! Israel possessed none of these.

Knowing that God was “amazed” in the days of Isaiah, we won’t be surprised that Jesus marveled at the same:

Mark 6:6 CSB

6 And he was amazed at their unbelief. He was going around the villages teaching.

So if God marveled at this in the days of Isaiah, and Jesus marveled at the same, can you imagine how much God must marvel at our prayerlessness today?

I want to share an illustration from E.M. Bounds that I think will help:

A dear friend of mine who was quite a lover of the chase retells this story: “Rising early one morning I heard the baying of a score of deerhounds in pursuit of their quarry. Looking away to a broad, open field in front of me, I saw a young fawn making its way across, and giving signs, moreover, that its race was well-nigh run.

Reaching the rails of the enclosure, it leaped over and crouched within ten feet from where I stood. A moment later two of the hounds came over, when the fawn ran in my direction and pushed its head between my legs. I lifted the little thing to my breast, and, swinging round and round, fought off the dogs. I felt, just then, that all the dogs in the West could not, and should not capture that fawn after its weakness had appealed to my strength.” So it is, when human helplessness appeals to Almighty God. Well do I remember when the hounds of sin were after my soul, until, at last, I ran into the arms of Almighty God!

~ E.M. Bounds, The Necessity of Prayer

How wide are God’s arms open to us in prayer? How vast and immeasurable is the repository of God’s grace that we have been given access to by prayer? And, yet, how few are there who know what prevailing prayer really is! How quickly do we weary in prayer!

God must really marvel that among us who are given such bounty we so rarely “stir ourselves up to take hold of him” (Isaiah 64:7). Surely there is nothing in light of God so absolutely astonishing as a practically prayerless Christian?

One final quote:

And what of those churches where the old-fashioned weekly prayer meeting is retained? Would not ‘weakly’ be the more appropriate word? My brothers, [by our actions] have we ceased to believe in prayer? How many of those reading these words really enjoy a prayer meeting? Is it a joy or a duty? Please forgive me for pointing our the perilous weaknesses of our churches. We are not out to criticize - far less to condemn. Anyone can do that. Our yearning is to stir up Christians “to take hold of God” as never before. We are never so high as when we are on our knees.

~ Anonymous, The Kneeling Christian

Prayerlessness happens when we take control of things ourselves; it signals that we are getting along quite fine, at least in our own estimation, without God’s help. We don’t have the time, so we imagine, to make room for seeking God. We have scheduled things so tightly that we only have time for those token-prayers that we think satisfy what Jesus and his apostles taught prayer should be.

I believe both fervent private and community prayer are indicators that we have really shouldered the cross in pursuit of Jesus Christ: and those who pray in dependence on God, as we have talked about here tonight, are the ones who will experience marvelous answers to their prayer as God has promised!

So this series begins with the necessity of prayer by pointing out that the real reason we need to pray is because we so desperately need God! We want to be a people of prayer because we want God to display his glory by doing in us and through us what only he can do!