Prayer Series 2020 - Week 2

Fervent Prayer

James 5:16 KJV 1900

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Prayer is action! When we pray, we are not passive observers/detacted spectators. There is quite an “energy” which is expended when we pray. It is also important to know how to expend this energy, and know the difference of fervency in prayer!

The fervency of Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane (sweating blood), or the fervency of Jacob’s all-night wrestling match with the angel at Penial.

Maybe you recall Jesus’ parable of the persistent widow taking her case to the unjust judge. “The wheel that squeaks the most gets fixed first!” This is not to be interpretted as a parable of God’s indifference to our needs so we must nag him, but a simple example of the parallel between that unjust judge and God. It is one of those, “how much more” mofif’s in the parables. CR …so if an unjust human will hear the petition of that fervent woman, how much more will our JUST heavenly Judge hear our petitions.

This fervency is something to be identified within the hearts of the prayers of the Saints who cry day and night. Like King David whose pillow was soaked with his tears.

Fervency incorporates proper genuine emotion, unlike the fine line that seperates Fervency and Frenzy. One honors God, and the other dishonors God.

TS - Next week we will be studying the Lord’s Prayer which helps navigate a certain pattern of prayer which begins with God and leaves us last. It was given to the disciples’ after their request for Jesus to teach them to pray. Today, I want to talk about a fluid movement which begins with Adoration and moves toward Petition and Supplication.

Sadly, we often only go to God our of our desires and needs, like a magical Genie, we rub the lamp and expect Him to obey us. We often abandon the model of the Lord’s prayer completely and move right to articulating our needs (a prayer of frenzy).

Let me introduce you to the acrostic “A-C-T-S” which is a useful pattern for prayer. We will examine each vital letter of this acrostic in an honest and fervent prayer. NOT TO formalize it and suck life from our prayers, but to INFORM our prayers according to Holy Spirit’s directives which God inspired. I believe that sticking to this simple model, we will both honor God in through our prayers and lead others to know who God is by hearing our prayers.

ADORATION

BB - Adoration is vital to keep the heart of prayer intact. When coupled with fervency, we resound the prayers of the prayer warriors of church history whose prayers were marked by fervent adoration to God.

Sometimes the biggest barrier to proper fervent adoration, we simply lack suitable vocabulary to voice that adoration. The charismatic movement introduced the gift of tongues to bypass our deficiency in inadequacy of our words. Charles Wesley in his hymn “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” complains about the same restriction that one tongue is a lamentable hindrance to praise.

But probably the most biblical solution to our deficiency is to turn to the Psalms which were written with simple but powerful “inspired” vocabulary, and in so doing, keeping our minds engaged.

Other times, another barrier to articulate fervent adoration is ignorance. We simply do not know who God is, and our limited understanding of Him creates limitations in proper fervent adoration.

CR Sproul - Consider the love-struck teenager who writes love notes to his girlfriend during study hall. The youth may be shy and reticent, but give him a pen and time to reflect on the object of his romance, and suddenly he is another Shakespeare. Oh, the love notes may be maudlin and less than sophisticated from a literary standpoint, but there is no lack of words. The boy is in love. His heart moves his pen.

Consider the love-struck teenager who writes love notes to his girlfriend during study hall. The youth may be shy and reticent, but give him a pen and time to reflect on the object of his romance, and suddenly he is another Shakespeare. Oh, the love notes may be maudlin and less than sophisticated from a literary standpoint, but there is no lack of words. The boy is in love. His heart moves his pen.

If this is true for a shy young love-struck teen, how does one pen a love letter to a perfect and Holy God? Not only has God revealed HImself in the glorious theater of nature, btu also in the pages of sacred Scripture. If we would only immerse ourselves into the realm of His nature and His Word, our fervency in prayer can only become honoring to Him without having to bypass our minds!

Why would I ever go to great lengths of calling us to train ourselves to properly adore God? It is because we were created to do so! We are called to fill the earth with the glory of God, and being created in His image to reflect His glory: magnify the Lord!

ILLUSTRATION - Buttering wife up when I need something (teaching Micah lol)

We are not merely trying to butter God up, and all when we adore God, we have our supplications in mind. Consider the angels in heaven described as surrounding the throne of God with praise and adoration!

The author of Hebrews tells us that we are to enter into the Holy of Holies boldy, and this is because the veil has been removed by the cross. The sword the angel wielded at the gate to paradise has been removed. Christ has given us access to the Father.

There are 2 dangers in this reality…the history of the church has taken this dogmaticly as if God remained aloof from them, and while in our modern society, others have completely robbed God of His honor due to him through their informality. “Hey God, hey man…how’s it going? Not good for me here…but you know, uh…we will make it somehow, right?” This is an overreaction to formalism.

The beauty of biblically rooted prayers is that they resound both confidence and reverence in how we come to God in adoration. God has invited us to come freely into His presence, but we must realize that we are still coming before GOD.

No I am not promoting dead formalism, our grammar does not need to be perfect, or lofty/eloquent words, but biblically speaking (according to Jesus), our adoration must reflect the confidence and reverence we have to the God revealed in Genesis to Revelation.

There are many books out thee that believe that if we follow their steps, God will give us whatever we ask. This is not prayer; that is magic, witchcraft, sorcery…not faith, but superstition. These are gimmicks intended to manipulate the sovereign God, who cannot be manipulated because He knows your heart in prayer.

So true prayer presupposes an attitude of humble submission of your petitions and supplications and replaced with adoration to the Almighty God regardless of specific needs or desires.

CONFESSION

Once adoration is properly given to God, we must come to Him with in confession. It is a contrasting imperative, upholding who God is, then who we are in contrast to Him…because we have no right to come before God at all apart from the finished work of Christ. Scripture informs us that God is too holy to even look at sin, but because of the work of Jesus Christ, we are invited to God’s presence IN SPITE of our sin.

Confession should be a normal part of our conversations with God. Jesus instructed the disciples that same way! It is not a “religious formality.” Being a Christian is characterized by the spirit of repentance, that daily confession is necessary because we commit sin daily. In turn, our prayers must involve a heart of confession of those offenses and repentance.

The Roman Catholic Church unbiblically elevated the rite of penance to a level of a sacrament which includes not only verbal confession, but also priestly absolution and “works of satisfaction.” We even see today a modern belief of a clear case of overreaction of “throwing the baby out with the bath water” by eliminating repentance and confession because what is done is done (it is finished), no penalty for sin, live free! Antinomianism and Humanism!

So why isn’t our confession of sin just a “one and done” deal and we move on into our earthly destiny as followers of Christ with a message of freedom!?

CR

1 John 1:9 ESV

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

God commands us to confess our sins and promises to forgive our sins. That we should confess our sins daily is clear.

Our confession should be rooted not in attrition, but in contrition.

ILLUSTRATION - Quarantine Behavioral navigating...”Daddy, I am sorry, please don’t spank me!” Its the fear of consequence, not offense.

True repentance is rooted in contrition, a godly remorse for offending God. This is repentance of a sinner mourning their sin, not for the loss of reward or for the threat of judgment, but because he has done injury to the honor of God.

One thing I believe the Roman Catholic church has done well is the elements of the pray of confession called, “The Act of Contrition” -

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee. I detest all my sins because of thy just punishment, but most of all because I have offended thee, O my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin.” This prayer captures the elements of true contrition and offense toward God.

R. C. Sproul, Does Prayer Change Things?, vol. 3, The Crucial Questions Series (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2009), 55.

I do not agree with reciting prayers as a formal exercise with no heartfelt remorse…I am not a dead Christian, nor will I lead a church into dead faith through formalities!

One of the most difficult waters to swim during our current culture of relativism is the difficulty of convincing people that they are sinners, and furthermore, that sin has such a weight which only God can releive. The response from the culture is usually, “Sure, I may be a sinner, but isn’t everyone? Nobody’s perfect.”

A contrite sinner’s prayer for pardon was composed by King David after committing adultery with Bethsheba (). No excuses, no justifying, no minimizing, no rationalizing…nothing that we experience often with guilty people.

David instead said, “I know my transgressions, and my sin is every before me…you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgement” (v3-4). David simply believed that God was justified to give him absolute punishment. David embraced his broken and contrite heart, and asked God for forgiveness and restoration.

Psalm 51:10–12 ESV

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

David was totally dependent upon God’s mercy. David couldn’t atone for his sins, nothing he can do to make up for his adultery…David understood what Jesus later made clear - that we are debtors who cannot pay our debts (the Lord’s prayer!)

Confession is literally declaring bankruptcy.

David even affirmed that sacrifices were incapable for gaining merit, but simply pointed beyond themselves to the perfect Sacrifice.

So likewise, to that covering, requires that we come before God in brokenness and contrition. The true sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart.

There is an element we should know and be assured of that God will forgive us, but we should have a sense of surprise EVERY TIME that we experience forgiveness, lest we take for granted mercy and forgiveness.

Sproul - I occasionally ask collegians, seminarians, and seminary professors, and ministers some questions: “Is God obligated to be loving? Is He bound to show forgiveness and grace?” Again and again their answers are in the affirmative: “Yes, of course, it’s God’s nature to be loving. He’s essentially a God of love. If He didn’t show love, He wouldn’t be God. If God is God, then He must be merciful!”

He must be merciful? If God must be merciful, then His mercy is not longer free or voluntary. It has become obligatory. If that is the case, it is no longer mercy but justice. God is never required to be merciful. As soon as we think God is obligated to be merciful, a red light should flash in our brains, indicating that we are no longer thinking about mercy but about justice. We need to do more than sing “Amazing Grace” we need to repeatedly amazed by grace!

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving is often united with our petitions and supplications! Scripture tells us to come to God and make all of our requests known with thanksgiving.

So then, thanksgiing is an ackknoeldgement of God and His benefits.

CR

Psalm 103:2 ESV

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,

What is the opposite of Thanksgiving: Ingratitude. Ingratitude is a serious matter and is the mark of pagan and apostate practices.

, Paul call attention to 2 primary sins of the pagan: Honor and Thanksiving...“For although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him”…Honor (or adoration) may be distinguished, but not seperated, because God is honored by thanksgiving and His benevolance towards us.

Consider the role of Thanksgiving in Jesus’ encounter with the 10 lepers…sermons for decades have focused upon the theme of gratitude, and that there was only one leper who was grateful. This is nonsense in every sense, no leper would have experienced this miracle of instant healing from this exiling and dreadful disease and not be grateful.

“For although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him”…Honor (or adoration) may be distinguished, but not seperated, because God is honored by thanksgiving and His benevolance towards us.

However, what we do see in this story is not one of gratitude, but of thanksgiving. And thanksgiving is gratefulness expressed! Being grateful is not enough, it must be expressed: aka Thanksgiving!

And in , all but one leper ran away at once, but only one turned back praising God and worshipped Him.

Likewise, all of our prayers are to include thanksgiving. Like the leper, we must PAUSE, TURN BACK, and GIVE THANKS. We may be freed from sin, but we are indebted to God, and we can never exhaust our opportunities for expressing gratitude.

Running off without expressing gratitude is also a mark of the immature Christian, one who lives by their feelings. Feeling prone to the roller-coaster spiritual life, moving quickly from HIGHS to LOWS.

During those HIGH moments, they feel an exhilarating sense of God’s presnece, but then plunges to despair the moment they sense an acute absence of such feelings. Living from blessing, to blessing…suffering from a short memory and seeking instant gratification.

The reality of the mature Christian believer is this: EVEN IF God never grants us another glimpse of His glory in life, EVEN IF He never grants another request, EVEN IF He never gives us another gift from the abundance of His grace…WE ARE STILL OBLIGATED to spend the rest of our lives thanking Him for what He already HAS DONE!

This is the core of spiritual maturity found in contentment in God.

SUPPLICATION

We often feel the weight and often hypocricy in our requests and petitions, don’t we? With so many hungry families in the world, how in the world would God care about which home we are to move into? However, the reality in this relationship with God is that the God who cares deeply about the empty stomachs in the world is the same God who cares about the home you live in.

Often we are unsure about the propriety of our requests, and this is a petition we should tell God about! CR

There is nothing too big or too small to bring before God in prayer, as long as it is not something we know to be contrary to the expressed will of God as made clear in His Word.

For instance, it would be quite inappropriate to ask God to make us competent thieves. We must not ask based upon continguencies…if God does ABC, then I will do XYZ…This is indeed Playing God (problem of Judges!)…attempting of manipulating God.

But what if our prayers seem to go unanswered? Sometimes we feel our prayers are hitting the ceiling, falls on deaf ears, or God remains unmoved or unconcerned about our passionate pleading.

Why do these feelings haunt us so often?

Here are some reflective reasons that we may be frustrated in prayer...

We pray in vague generalities. For instance if we ask God to “bless everyone in the world” or to “forgive everyone in town,” it is difficult to “see” the prayer answered.

We are at war with God. If there is unrepentant sin in your life which has broken harmony with God and open rebellion, we can hardly expect him to turn a benevolent ear toward our prayers. His ear is inclined to those who love Him and seek to obey Him. He turns His ear away from the wicked. Thus, an attitude of reverence toward God is vital in effective prayer. (Often in my own prayers, I anticipated to bring petitions to him, and couldn’t get myself past confession. The truth is, if we are sensitive to the Holy Spirit when we pray, we will realize that often God is not ready for you to petition, nor are you ready to receive.) In , the psalmist David penned these divinely inspired words: “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” The Hebrew verse could also be translated, “If I had iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have heard.”

In , the psalmist David penned these divinely inspired words: “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” The Hebrew verse could also be translated, “If I had iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have heard.”

We tend to be impatient. Isn’t it amazing when we ask for patience, that we ask for it “right now!” It is uncommon for us to be ok with waiting years, indeed decades, for most sincere petitions to be answered. The older I grow in my faith, the more I realize that God is not in a hurry. This shapes and grounds me in. Often when we approach God, we demand “prompt and courteous” acts by God. If God tarries, our impatience gives way to frustration. We need to learn patience, asking God for His peace.

We tend to be impatient. Isn’t it amazing when we ask for patience, that we ask for it “right now!” It is uncommon for us to be ok with waiting years, indeed decades, for most sincere petitions to be answered. The older I grow in my faith, the more I realize that God is not in a hurry. This shapes and grounds me in. Often when we approach God, we demand “prompt and courteous” acts by God. If God tarries, our impatience gives way to frustration. We need to learn patience, asking God for His peace.

We tend to be impatient. Isn’t it amazing when we ask for patience, that we ask for it “right now!” It is uncommon for us to be ok with waiting years, indeed decades, for most sincere petitions to be answered. The older I grow in my faith, the more I realize that God is not in a hurry. This shapes and grounds me in. Often when we approach God, we demand “prompt and courteous” acts by God. If God tarries, our impatience gives way to frustration. We need to learn patience, asking God for His peace.

We have short memories. It is so easy for us to forget the beenfits and gifts given by the hand of God (story of Judges!). The saint remembers the gifts of God and doesn’t require a fresh one each hour to keep his faith intact.

The firmness and root of our faith and worship as Saints is because of Who God is, and what He has done. This remains true even if we never receive another benefit from Him. So we remember the Lord when we go before Him. He will not give us a stone, when you ask Him for bread!