Value 3: Consistent Prayer for Others

Introduction

As we continue walking through “marks” of a healthy church and what Jesus expects from His church according to the Bible, today we arrive at a spiritual discipline of sorts that some Christians and churches exercise regularly and do so really well, and others haven’t exercised it in years. We’ve seen how a healthy church has Christ-Centered Preaching as this is what God commands the pastors of His church to do each week. We’ve seen how a healthy church is a church that practices Congregational Praise - not special praise or individual praise, but congregational praise as we speak to one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We must have these 2 things. But this isn’t where we stop according to God’s Word. A healthy church must be a praying church.

Prayer is something that is among the most underused and misunderstood things in the world. Many believe that prayer is private declaration as the person praying demands that God do certain things as if He were genie in a lamp only there to answer our every request. Others believe that prayer is a waste of time and something that accomplishes nothing. As we look to Scripture and as we reflect on our own lives, we understand that both of these extremes are inaccurate. Prayer is powerful because the One that we pray to is all-powerful! Prayer matters greatly.

In our world, though, prayer is seen as something that should be avoided completely. No one minds talking about “the man upstairs” or “god” but whenever someone says “In Jesus Name” everyone takes notice. If you go back to last January in Cincinnati, Ohio, there was an emergency that brought everyone to their knees immediately. Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin went to make a seemingly routine tackle but upon standing up immediately collapsed and suffered cardiac arrest. On this field in Ohio a few months ago, dozens of players were shocked and joined in locked arms praying to God on behalf of this young man.

What was amazing in the aftermath of this incident was that the same media and public who generally hates praying in the name of Jesus Christ found themselves looking for hope. You had analysts on ESPN and other very secular organizations publicly leading prayers on live television. Prayer is powerful! God can use something awful for something incredible. Damar ended up being ok but even if he hadn’t been, God used a tragedy on live television as millions of people were watching to bring about a prayer meeting larger than any led by Billy Graham, the Apostle Paul, or any pastor or evangelist that you can think of. We must be a praying people but if you ask the average Christian and the average church why they don’t pray more, statistically most will say that they are just too busy. We get distracted when we pray so we try to solve problems a different way. This practice and this lifestyle of “hurry” is often the leading cause of worry. Biblically, we see that we are to worry about nothing and pray about everything. We see a reminder in the Word of God for the people of God to be a people of prayer - let’s see who we pray to and how we are supposed to pray.

Luke 11:1–13 CSB

1 He was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.” 2 He said to them, “Whenever you pray, say, Father, your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread. 4 And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone in debt to us. And do not bring us into temptation.” 5 He also said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I don’t have anything to offer him.’ 7 Then he will answer from inside and say, ‘Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I have gone to bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he won’t get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his friend’s shameless boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. 9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

It’s a blessing to be able to come to our Father through the access given to us through the blood of Jesus and to come before Him with boldness as Hebrews 4 tells us. May we never take that for granted - let’s ask Jesus to guide us this morning.

We Must Recognize God’s Greatness (1-4)

What exactly is prayer and why do we pray? These are two questions that people have had for years and there have been a variety of answers over the years as well. Some say that God wants to know what’s on your heart and they call that prayer - just telling God what’s on your heart. FBC Salem family, y’all are Bible scholars. Think through that statement for a moment - God wants to know. What’s problematic with that statement? God is OMNISCIENT - He knows everything. He knows the number of hairs on your head. He knows the number of grains of sand on the beach. He knows what you’re thinking right now. Prayer is not informing God what’s going on - God already knows. So then, what is prayer? We could say that prayer is communicating with God, trusting in God’s provision, and yielding to God’s will. Some want to know, though, if God already knows then why should I pray? That’s a good question and our text gives us the answer. For one, we are instructed to pray. How do we start our prayers according to Jesus in Luke 11? With the character of God. When you and I pray, we are recognizing God’s greatness, holiness, sovereignty, grace, mercy, and justice and we are praying that God would reveal Himself to ourselves and others in a powerful way by providing for us, forgiving us of our sins, and delivering us from temptation. Prayer starts with the glory of God - not “informing” God. He already knows. He delights in answering the prayers of His people. This is why James 4:2-3 shares, “You have not because you ask not.” We are commanded to pray because God answers prayer. Prayer is often the means through which God accomplishes His ends for His glory and our good. Prayer starts with understanding who God is and who we are.

Fundamentally, we see in our text that prayer starts with the glory of God.

We start with the “YOUR” before we get to the “OUR” - start with God’s glory before getting to your need

5 aspects to this prayer

Recognizing God’s Holiness

Look at how this prayer starts - some of you know this prayer by heart and most of us have Matthew 6 memorized, not Luke 11, so let’s look at the text. When you pray - say Father Your name be honored as holy. When we first pray we recognize that God is holy. We are ascribing honor to the Lord for who He is and we are asking that He make His holiness known in this world. The highest priority of prayer is the glory of God just as the chief end of man is to glorify God. We start with God’s character.

Realizing God’s Kingdom

Because God is holy and because we are sinners living in a sin-filled world, this model prayer moves to ask God’s Kingdom to come. Shouldn’t this be our prayer every single day, Christian? That God would move in such a way through our lives that His light shines bright into the darkness and that more people would come to know Christ each day until the consummation of the Kingdom whenever Jesus Christ returns. We start with Who God is, we move to what He will do.

Relying on God’s Provision

Give us this day our daily bread - We move from the future to the present here. From the “YOUR’ to the “OUR.” We ask God for the things that we require - which includes everything because He is our Sustainer and all of our days are held in His hand. This picture of daily bread draws back on the Israelites in the Wilderness as they had to rely on God to provide them with manna every single day. Do you remember what happened whenever they tried to save some? It went bad. Last week whenever they were calling for a foot of snow and we got 1 inch (maybe?), we were able to go to the store and stock up on supplies. In our modern world we’re tempted to think that we’re self-sustaining and prepared because of our due diligence. Somehow, people think that they don’t need to depend on God anymore. This is as far from the truth as can be. We are just as much in need of “our daily bread” as Jesus’ followers 2000 years ago! We humbly ask Him to provide what we need - not necessarily what we want.

Remembering God’s Forgiveness

Next, we ask Him to forgive us our sins. We remember that God is a forgiving God. Are you thankful for that truth? As those who have been forgiven, what is our expectation? To forgive others. This requires divine help at times, and this is why this shows up in this model prayer. Jesus’ argument goes like this, “Since you, as sinners, can forgive others, God, who is merciful, can forgive.” And if you don’t forgive others, it is a sign that you likely haven’t been forgiven by Jesus because when you realize how serious your sin is before Him, suddenly the sin that people commit against you looks a whole lot smaller. We remember what God has done.

Finding Refuge in God’s Power

We end this prayer with a request to not bring us into temptation. Some wrongly think that this means that it is God who tempts but we know that this isn’t true as James 1:13 tells us that God cannot tempt anyone to sin because He Himself is not tempted by evil! What is this saying? That when we are in times of trial and temptation, that God would remind us to find refuge in His arms. This is Psalm 91:1 language about dwelling in the shelter of the Most High. This is asking God for spiritual protection.

The Lord’s Prayer is all about the Lord! His greatness. His power. We must recognize who He is before we pray and as we pray, we reflect who He is to others. “The immediate purpose of prayer is the accomplishing of God’s will on earth; the ultimate purpose of prayer is the eternal glory of God.”

What conversation almost always comes up as we talk about prayer either in church life or with people who do not believe in Christ? The topic of unanswered prayers - or at least situations that we pray for something and it appears to others that we are not seeing an answer. Why does God not always answer prayers our way, right away? Thomas Watson, a puritan pastor nearly 400 years ago, offered 4 answers to this question:

Sermons from John Piper (1990–1999) When God Says, “Not Now”

1. Because he loves to hear the voice of prayer. “You let the musician play a great while before you throw him down money, because you love to hear this music.”

2. That he may humble us. We may too easily assume we merit some ready answer, or that he is at our beck and call like a butler, not as sovereign Lord and loving Father.

3. Because he sees we are not yet fit or ready for the mercy we seek. It may be he has things to put in place—in us or in our church or in the world. There are a million pieces to the puzzle. Some things go first to make a place for the others.

4. Finally, that the mercy we pray for may be the more prized, and may be sweeter when it comes.

Christian, we pray to the King of Kings. As we do this, we must recognize His greatness. His holiness. His power. His forgiveness. His grace. His mercy. We start our prayer by looking up and thanking Him for being God and trusting in Him to provide as He has done every step of the way so far.

We Must Recognize God’s Generosity (5-10)

Now, the text moves to give us a parable about prayer. As you read in the Gospel’s - especially if you’re doing our Bible reading plan as you got to Matthew 13 this week and came across a bunch of parables - you see that Jesus taught with stories often and these stories are what we call, parables. Jesus always had a teaching that He wanted to communicate to His people through these stories. Sometimes the meaning was easy to understand - like the story of the Good Samaritan. We see in that story that the one who honors God isn’t always the person with the right lineage or background but the person who truly follows through with Christ-like love. That is what Jesus wants from His followers. There are other times where Jesus’ parables are harder to figure out. Here in Luke 11 we see a parable on prayer as Jesus is communicating what it looks like to be a prayer warrior of sorts. We’re not just supposed to simply follow a pattern of prayer, but to be people of prayer and to be a person of prayer you have to be persistent in prayer! (see 1 Thess 5:17) This story of a person who goes to his friend at midnight and knocks on his door, asking for bread.

We have a hard time with this story because of culture - so let’s put our context hats on here and go back to the Middle East 2,000 years ago. You’ve traveled a long way and arrived at your destination and you’re exhausted and hungry. There’s no Buc’ees or Wally’s to go to. There’s no Holiday Inn Express. There’s no McDonalds. You’re stuck looking for a friend and you remember that you have one in town. You’ve traveled all night to avoid the scorching heat of the sun, so you arrive at midnight. You knock on the door of this friend’s house and you are grateful but you are hungry and the host has no food. This is every grandmother’s worst nightmare, isn’t it? The grandsons are coming over and there isn’t any food! In this culture, hospitality was a big deal because the reputation of the family and the entire village/town was at stake. There’s no bread booth open at the market because it’s midnight. There’s nothing in the house. So what does the host do? He goes to his neighbor and tells him the situation - what does Jesus’ story share next? The neighbor says to go back to bed and leave him alone. Kind of like when you get a call at 1am that wakes you up from an unknown number. What are you thinking? I’m not picking that thing up. But then the person calls back again, and again, and again. What do you do? You pick up the phone. The neighbor opens his door and gives the man the bread that he needs. As Tim Keller once shared, “The only one who dares wake up a king at 3am for a glass of water is a child - we have that kind of access!”

Why does the neighbor help the host? Not just because of the persistence of the host but literally, because of his desire to avoid shame. If the neighbor refused to help then he would be ashamed in the whole town. What is this telling us about God and praying to God? We persist in prayer not because doing so is a promise to get exactly what we want if we just ask with enough boldness.

“The honor of God’s name is at stake in God’s answering of prayers. He is not ashamed to be called our God. He is listening. He will respond. He can’t do otherwise!”

Jesus is sharing with us that God answers prayer - but we know that He doesn’t always do this in the way that we expect. Look at the promises that follow in verses 9-10, three present tense imperatives. Commands for us to do whenever we pray at all times. When we come to God in persevering prayer, God will give us our requests as we find answers and doors are opened. In other words our needs are met because God is generous. Think about what you and I deserve today, right this very second. We deserve punishment as a result of our sin. That’s what our actions and righteousness deserves. Eternal separation from God. Yet, what is God giving every single person on the planet right now? Generosity. Mercy. Grace. We recognize that God is generous to not give us what we do deserve. As we come to Him through Jesus Christ, we are told to ask, seek, and knock and we receive from the Lord. This is where some people go down the rabbit hole of prosperity theology where God promises to give you the desires of your heart and will make you happy, healthy, and wealthy if you just declare it with boldness and have enough faith in Him then you can name it and claim it and speak it into existence with a “Word of Faith.” Bible scholars, y’all know that’s bad theology and bad theology hurts people. What is the true Biblical teaching? God decides what is best. God decides what the answer is. Sometimes God’s generous answer is “Yes, what you ask for is what is best for you.” Sometimes God’s generous answer is “No, what you asked for is not what is best for you.” Sometimes God’s answer is “Wait, it’s not time yet. Be patient and trust in Me.” As we pray we have to remember that God is sovereign, not us. He gives us what we need, when we need it. He has our best interests at heart and we must recognize that what God gives is generous and more than we could ever earn or deserve ourselves. God’s “no” is a billion times better than our “yes.” We ask, seek, and knock to discern what His will is. We are commanded to ask, seek, and knock to align with His will as God answers prayers! If we fail to ask, seek, and knock then we demonstrate that we believe more in our self rather than our Savior - that’s idolatry. We ask Him for help and He answer us. He helps us. God is not annoyed when His children call at 3am. He’s still awake.

We Must Recognize God’s Goodness (11-13)

We have a good heavenly Father. Not a cruel one. Not a sinful one. Not a mean one. We have a good one! This is foundational to understanding our relationship with Him and why we pray in the first place. This prayer begins with 2 words, “Our Father!” Has that ever taken you aback in your prayer life? The God who spoke the universe into existence. The God who knows the number of beats your heart has made, and the number it will make until it’s your time to go home. The God who designed the intricacies of existence and placed our planet in the perfect location for life to flourish. This God, Sovereign, Savior, Sustainer, Who exists outside of time and made all things by His own design, is your Father. That’s humbling. And that’s the foundation for our confidence at the same time, isn’t it? In ancient religion it was not normal to think of a singular God in the first place nor was it common to think of “god” as being one’s father except in extreme situations where there was a hero or leader who claimed divine status. Jewish culture was not big on calling Yahweh, Abba. Yet this is what Jesus routinely did and what He calls on His followers to do. We pray to our Father, through the Son, by the prompting of the Spirit. Our prayers are Trinitarian.

What do earthly father’s do for their children? Dad’s desire what is best for their children. They give their children good gifts. Now, sometimes dad’s are jokesters and other times dad’s have to teach a lesson with some tough love. But dad’s desire what is best for their kids. They give their children good gifts. When a child asks for food, the father doesn’t respond by giving the child a snake or a scorpion to inflict harm and danger. That’s cruelty! Even as flawed, imperfect, sinful people, father’s try their best to provide - that’s what children expect from their earthly fathers… Maybe you didn’t have that example. Maybe you didn’t have a good father. Maybe the concept of God as a Father is hard for you to fully comprehend because that word has been weaponized. Maybe you’re here and you are a father and you feel like a failure because you haven’t been a good one. Regardless, look at the expectation Jesus gives at the end of our text. We expect our earthly (sinful) fathers to give good gifts to children, and we should expect this even more from our heavenly Father to provide exactly what we need, exactly when we need it. This is why James tells us that God is the giver of every good and perfect gift. How does God come through with what we need? Verse 13 - by giving us the Holy Spirit. This comes to pass in Acts 2 in the second book we have from Dr. Luke as the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. But this is also true today - Christian. When you are in need and you ask the Father for help. What does He do? He provides because He is good. God provides by giving Himself

Romans 8:32 CSB

32 He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything?

He is good! He works all things for His glory and our ultimate good as Romans 8:28 tells us

Romans 8:28 CSB

28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

Spurgeon shared it like this years ago, “He who counts the stars and calls them by their name is in no danger of forgetting His own children.” We pray to a God who knows us. A God who is good. A God who is generous. A God who is faithful. A God who is sovereign. A God who declares the end from the beginning. A God who wins. A God who is seated.

So, why do some people claim to believe in this God and not pray?

We don’t think we need God’s help

We don’t trust in God’s Word

The person who claims to know Jesus but doesn’t pray personally and doesn’t understand why Churches spend time in prayer corporately falls into one of these two categories. They think that they can do everything themselves or they don’t trust in God’s Word or both. I’ve heard some ask this question: Why do we spend time in prayer as a congregation? Here’s your one sentence answer to that question - Because at FBC Salem we believe in God’s Word and because of this, we acknowledge that we desperately need God’s help. As John Stott once shared, “The purpose of prayer is emphatically not to bend God’s will to ours but to align ours with His.” We need God’s help in this process, church. We must never think that we’ve arrived and no longer need to pray and align ourselves with God’s will and plan. There was a time in which pastors prepared more for their prayer meetings than they did their sermons. They prayed for hours with their congregation! Today there is a temptation to think that prayer is irrelevant or a waste of time and this simply is not true.

Prayer is the thermometer of the Christian and the Church

A Christian that doesn’t pray is an oxymoron. A Church that doesn’t pray isn’t a Church. It’s a social club. A musical hall. A lecture space. But it’s not the Church of the living God who has commanded His people to be a people of prayer both privately and corporately. The question that every church must ask in such a time as this is not: How do we eliminate prayer from our services or how do we use prayer as a transition spot in our order of service - the question is this: How can we add more prayer to our service in a way that exalts Christ, edifies the saints, and encourages those who are struggling? As we better understand who God is, the more we should pray. As a church, we value prayer because God does. We pray because God demands us to but deeper than that, we have the privilege to because of Jesus Christ. We need more prayer in our individual lives and the life of our church, not less.

Why is this a value of a healthy church? If prayer is talking to the Lord and if God has committed to answer the prayers of His covenantal people who are saved by grace through faith in Christ, then of course we must be a people of prayer! Here’s why: God uses the means of prayers to accomplish His sovereign purposes! Think of the people in Scripture who cried out to the Lord and how God not only heard their cries but answered. This is prominent in the Psalms as Psalm 34:4 says this

Psalm 34:4 CSB

4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me and rescued me from all my fears.

We see this with Jonah in the whale. He was in danger, prayed, and the Lord answered.

We see this with Paul in prison and in times of suffering. He prays and the Lord answers.

These people in Scripture talk to the Lord - they come before Him with boldness - as we can do because of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 4:16) - and asked the Lord to do something. They knew He could. They believed He would. They had faith, even if He had something different in store. This is prayer. God delights in hearing the prayers of His people. As we pray, we grow to be more like Him and as we pray we become united as a body of believers in line with His will. Understand this, friend - in your seasons of struggling and suffering when God says, “No” or “Not Yet” - you’re not alone. Think of Paul. Suffering with a thorn in the flesh while doing the ministry work that God had called Him to do, he prays that the Lord would take that thorn away. What did God say?

2 Corinthians 12:8–9 CSB

8 Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.

When we are weak, He is strong. One day, all the suffering that we experience in this life. The loss, death, loneliness, anxiety, stress, worry, depression, heartache, disappointment, it will all cease. But that day isn’t today. In our waiting, we pray. In our longing, we pray. In our suffering, we pray. Sometimes God works supernaturally and answers those prayers with a “YES” but there are other times where we are called to endure those things for a season. We are called to pray - we get to pray - and we trust the result to the Lord who knows what is best. We have to understand who God is and what prayer is first because as we better understand this, our prayers change.

As we better understand who our God is, our prayers change

When We Pray, We Praise God

When We Pray, We Repent From Our Sins

When We Pray, We Ask God to Act for His glory and our good

Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17 - He prays for God to sanctify His people with the truth of His Word. It is good to pray for God’s glory to be made known and for others to grow. God delights in hearing these prayers!

When We Pray, We Yield to God’s Will

Think about Jesus in the Garden - not as I will but as you will. Prayer is not a way to manipulate God or to twist His arm to get Him to do what we want… We pray to know God’s will. For His will to come and for us to align with it.

When We Pray, We Pray For God to Save Souls

There is no one too far gone for the grace of Jesus Christ! Ask, and keep on asking. Seek, and keep on seeking. Knock, and keep on knocking.

Illustration with grandpa Hayworth finally coming to faith in Christ at the end of his life - do not give up

FBC Salem is a church that “PRAYS” and the reason why this is a value is because the Bible says that it must be a value for all Christians. As Martin Luther once put it, “Pray and let God worry.” (Obviously, He doesn’t worry about anything!) We pray and we know that God works through prayer. He accomplishes His purposes and He changes us to be more like Him. A healthy and dangerous church is a praying church! We believe in the value of corporate prayer because prayer is not self-promotion, it is God-promotion. Our community needs less self-promotion and more God-promotion. Look at Who God is. Come and See what God has done. More promotion of a God who is sovereign, worthy, faithful, good, generous, and great. We need Him to increase and us to decrease!

My prayer for you is that this year would be a year marked by consistent, Christ-Centered growth in your spiritual walk as you become more like Jesus each day. My prayer for this church is that He would increase and we would decrease. That we would be so in line with His will for our church that people would glorify God and know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the only explanation we can give for what God is doing at FBC Salem is Jesus Christ. His Glory - not our fame. His Kingdom - not our building. His Will - not our ideas. His Namesake - not our name. His Power - not ours. We will pray for one another, we will pray for this church, we will pray for this community, we will pray for this world because God’s people are to be a people of prayer!

“Nothing fails like prayer.” Bart Campolo

RA Torrery, “The chief purpose of prayer is that God may be glorified in the answer.”

Spurgeon, “Prayer irrigates the fields of life with the waters which are stored up in the reservoirs of promise.”

“To abandon prayer is to embrace atheism.” Alec Motyer