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Talking to God
Johnny, a very bright 5 year old, told his daddy he'd like to have a baby brother and, along with his request, offered to do whatever he could to help.
His dad, a very bright 35 year old, paused for a moment and then replied, " I'll tell you what, Johnny, if you pray every day for two months for a baby brother, I guarantee that God will give you one!"
Johnny responded eagerly to his dad's challenge and went to his bedroom early that night to start praying for a baby brother.
He prayed every night for a whole month, but after that time, he began to get skeptical.
He checked around the neighborhood and found out that what he thought was going to happen, had never occurred in the history of the neighborhood.
You just don't pray for two months and then, whammo- a new baby brother.
So, Johnny quit praying.
After another month, Johnny's mother went to the hospital.
When she came back home, Johnny's parents called him into the bedroom.
He cautiously walked into the room, not expecting to find anything, and there was a little bundle lying right next to his mother.
His dad pulled back the blanket and there was -- not one baby brother, but two!! His mother had twins!
Johnny's dad looked down at him and said, "Now aren't you glad you prayed?"
Johnny hesitated a little and then looked up at his dad and said, "Yes, but aren't you glad I quit when I did?"
That is some powerful prayer.
Raise your hand if you know someone who people tend to think of as a “prayer warrior”.
When someone needs some serious prayer they call this person.
When something happens in their life they pray about it and over night that situation changes.
Now raise your hand if you would say, “That’s definitely not me.
In fact, my prayer life could use a little help.”
I have never seen myself as a “prayer warrior”.
In fact, for the majority of my life I have felt like my prayer life was mostly inadequate or not good enough.
Some of you may have even felt that way in the past.
You may even feel that way today.
One reason I think we feel that way is because we tend to look at God’s laws of nature through the lens of Newton’s laws.
In other words, when we exert force on something we expect an equal and opposite reaction.
When we don’t see those results from prayer we naturally think, “I didn’t do it right.
I messed something up.
It just doesn’t work for me.”
Today we are starting a new series about prayer that we are calling “Power of Prayer.”
Let me tell you real quick what we will be talking about for the next 4 weeks, God willing.
Today we are going to talk about prayer at its most basic level, how to talk to God.
Next week we will discuss the other half of communicating with God, listening.
How can we hear God when He responds?
How do we recognize God’s voice?
Listening to God.
Week 3 we will ask the question, “Does God listen to me?
Does he even hear me?” We’ll talk about unanswered prayer.
“Why does it seem like when someone prays God does everything, but when I pray He doesn’t seem to do what I ask Him to do?”
The last week we will look at Jesus’ response to the disciples when they said, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
Commonly referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer.”
The overly observant of you may be thinking, “Power of Prayer?
This is all about defining prayer and how to pray.”
You are exactly right.
When I think of “Prayer” and “Power” in the bible there is one verse that immediately stands out...
As humans we read this verse and our eyeballs turn into dollar signs.
As David would say, “The Old Man” or the old self sees opportunity.
A new car.
A better bathroom in my house.
No “rush hour” traffic on the way home from work.
In Western Oklahoma that just means not getting stuck behind a farmer checking his cattle.
So was Jesus trying to trick us?
I don’t think so, but He often spoke in a way that would cause His listeners to stop and think.
Think about the rest of the bible.
If I could summarize it in my own words, I would say that “all of scripture testifies about Jesus Christ and God’s love for us and calls us to be self-less.”
At first glance this verse appears to be saying that the power of prayer is in the receiving, but I think what Jesus wants us to realize is that the power is in the praying.
In other words, Pray for anything!
Whatever you want.
Then God will respond by either giving you that thing, or He will change your heart.
Because faith isn’t a measure of how much I believe in something, rather it is a state of being aligned with God’s desires.
God’s will.
Does God want me to have this car?
Avoid traffic?
Move this mountain?
Or is He trying to teach me something else.
I believe that God wants to change the way we think about Power of Prayer.
Move “Power” from the external part of prayer (the results of our prayers) to the internal part of prayer (what God is doing in us through prayer, who you are becoming.)
I like to think of it this way… If you want to be rich, pray for God to make you rich!
And I promise that if you keep praying for God to make you rich you will be rich.
Only, it may not be the rich you originally hoped for.
After a week, a month, a year, a decade of praying for riches you will suddenly realize that you are wealthy beyond measure.
Rich in friendships, family, relationships, love of the Father, and on and on the list will go.
My prayer for us is that through this series God will change the way we think about the power of prayer.
Specifically, my prayer during this series is Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians...
“The incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him.”
His love, mercy and salvation that lives in us.
Not a magic wand that we can wield, but a life changing, heart penetrating, hope fulfilling, immeasurable love that starts with prayer.
As Christ followers, if you want to change your life the most effective and powerful thing you can do is pray.
So, if prayer is that powerful, why don’t people pray more?
Throughout my life there have been several things that have pushed me away from prayer for one reason or another.
Here are 4 things that keep people from praying, maybe you can relate to one or more of these...
NOT SURE YOU KNOW HOW TO PRAY.
I want to pray more, but I’m not sure how.
Am I doing it right?
Did I say the right thing?
Did I use enough “Thou’s” and “Thy’s”?
2. GET BORED OR DISTRACTED WHILE TRYING TO PRAY.
I lose focus.
You start to pray, but then your thoughts trail off or you fall asleep.
“God watch over us today and guide our… did I lock the doors?
Anyway, guide our… I didn’t feed the dog!”
3. THINK YOUR REQUESTS ARE TOO SMALL FOR GOD.
God is this amazing being who created the universe and He’s got all this stuff going on right now, why would He be concerned about this little thing that’s bothering me?
4. NOT SURE YOUR PRAYERS WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
If God already knows what I’m going through and He already knows what is going to happen, why would I pray about it anyway?
How could my little prayer make a difference?
A lot of us go through life letting doubts just like these guide our prayer life and we never really develop a strong and meaningful prayer life.
So today we are going to start as simple as we can with a basic understanding of prayer and work our way up from there.
If you are taking notes, let’s start with the definition of prayer.
Prayer is simply “communication with God.”
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