What Is Dangerous Prayer?

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

There was once a man who was very faithful in his prayer life. Every morning when he got up he would kneel by his bed and he would pray, ‘God bless me, God bless my family, God bless this day’. And before every meal he would say a prayer ‘God bless this food’. And every night when he went to bed he would pray, ‘God bless me, God bless my family, God bless this night’. And every time he prayed a prayer, he would take a walnut and place it in a glass jar. And over the years his house became full of glass jars, that were full of walnuts. They were on shelves and bookcases and window sills and everywhere. Walnuts… 1000’s of them! And the man felt very pleased with himself – ‘just look at all these jars, just look at all these walnuts, just look at all these prayers that I have prayed’ he would say.

Then one night Jesus appeared to him in a dream. And Jesus took each of the glass jars, opened them, and one by one he took out the walnuts and broke them open. And inside each one it was empty, nothing but dryness and dust. And Jesus said to him, you know your prayers are like that, although there have been 1000s of them – they are empty, they are dry, they are meaningless.

Tension

How many of you can relate to that story? I know I can. Perhaps, like me, you genuinely believe in the power of prayer, but honestly you know you could pray more consistently and with more depth. I read a blog post from Cathe Laurie, wife of Pastor Greg Laurie, this week that suggested three reasons people don’t pray more:

We don’t think we have time.

We don’t think it is important.

We don’t believe that it makes any difference.

I think that is probably an accurate assessment, but based on my own prayer life and talking to others about their prayer lives, there are at least a couple other reasons that a lot of us don’t pray like we should:

Some of us might feel like we’re not really good at prayer. We listen to others pray and think to ourselves, “I wish I could pray like that”.

I think that some of us might actually be bored with prayer. We’re kind of in a prayer rut in which we find ourselves praying the same things over and over again.

In our new sermon series that starts today, we’re going to address this last barrier to more effective prayer. We’re calling this series “Dangerous Prayers”. We’ll begin today by answering the question: What is dangerous prayer? And then for the next three weeks, we’ll be looking at three specific dangerous prayers that I’m going to challenge all of us to pray. And the one thing I can promise is that if you’ll actually prayer these prayers from your heart, it is going to get you out of any kind of prayer rut that you’re in right now and it is going to radically transform not only your prayer life, but your walk with Jesus.

Truth

We’ll begin this morning by going back to one of the first dangerous prayers found in the Bible. So go ahead and turn to Genesis 32 and in just a moment we’ll look at a passage that we’ve studied before. In fact, I preached on this same passage just about a year ago in our “Never Going Back” series.

The story of Jacob is one of the most interesting in the Bible. From birth his life is filled with conflict, especially with his brother Esau and later with his father-in-law Laban. Both of those relationships eventually come to a point where Esau and Laban seek to kill Jacob. So Jacob is understandably on the run much of his life.

In Genesis 31, God comes to Jacob and tells him to return to the land of his fathers and promises to be with him. So Jacob gathers his two wives, his two concubines and his children, who range in age from preschoolers to young teens and he flees from his father-in-law Laban. Laban pursues Jacob and his family and eventually catches up to them and confronts Jacob. Laban and Jacob come to an agreement not to cross into each other’s land in the future and set up a pillar of rocks as a witness to their agreement.

As Jacob approaches his family’s land and the inevitable confrontation with his brother Esau, he does what he has always done. He comes up with an elaborate plan to try and appease his brother’s anger and protect himself and his family. That brings us up to the passage that we’ll look at this morning.

Genesis 32:22–32 ESV

22 The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. 24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh.

It’s not completely clear here exactly who Jacob is wrestling with. In verse 24, he is merely identified as “a man”. The prophet Hosea identifies him as “the angel” (Hosea 12:4). But Jacob recognizes him as God Himself and names the place Peniel, which mean “the face of God”. I agree with a number of scholars who believe this is a Christophany - a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus. That would certainly be consistent with the fact that Jesus is the only person of the triune God who appears in human form. But whether this is merely an angel or it is Jesus, the effect is the same - Jacob is literally wrestling with God or one of His representatives here. And in that encounter, he prays a dangerous prayer. Can you help me identify that prayer?

I will not let you go until you bless me. (v. 26)

At first glance that doesn’t appear to be altogether different than the kind of rote prayers we pray where we ask God to bless us. But when we look at this passage as a whole, it is obvious that this is a different kind of prayer. And it becomes obvious right away why this kind of prayer is dangerous.

Dangerous prayers ask God to bless us by first breaking us.

We will see this in each of the three dangerous prayers we’ll look at beginning next Sunday. That is certainly different that the kind of prayers we pray most often isn’t it? Most of us are pretty comfortable asking God to bless our lives or our food. We’re comfortable praying for God to heal illness and disease - either our own or that of others. But how many of us would pray those prayers if we realized that the blessing was only going to come after God first breaks us? I hope you see now why these kinds of prayers are indeed dangerous.

In verse 29, we read that God did indeed bless Jacob. But that was not until after He had first broken Jacob. In fact, He breaks Jacob twice before blessing him. The first time He breaks Jacob is obvious. God physically breaks Jacob by touching the hip socket and putting it out of joint. That left Jacob with a physical reminder of his encounter with God

But there is a second breaking here that is not nearly as obvious. It occurs in verse 27 when God asks Jacob, ”What is your name?”. To us that question seems pretty innocuous, but in the culture of that day, names were much more significant than they are today. Today people pick names for all kinds of reasons - just ask my wife about all the unique names of her students over the years.

But in Jacob’s day, names we an indication of a person’s character and identity. Jacob’s name means something like “he grasps the heal” or “supplanter”. He was given that name at birth because he literally grasped the heal of his older twin brother, Esau, as he exited the womb. But unfortunately, that name proved to be a kind of prophetic picture of the kind of person Jacob would become - one who was always scheming and deceiving others to get what he wanted even when he was not entitled to it.

So when God asks Jacob, “What is your name?”, He is essentially asking Jacob to reflect on the kind of person that he has been throughout his life. Jacob had crossed the stream that night thinking that Esau was his problem. But with that one question, God made it clear that the problem was actually Jacob himself.

Application

We’re going to use this passage to learn about two important aspects of dangerous prayer. First we’ll talk about some prerequisites for praying these prayers and then we’ll focus on the impact these prayers can have on our lives.

THREE PREREQUISITES FOR PRAYING DANGEROUS PRAYERS

Solitude

I don’t have to tell you that we live in a time when people are more distracted than ever. We carry around these devices that fit in our pockets that are constantly clamoring for our attention. Far too often we pay attention to God like we pay attention to the flight attendant who is giving us the pre-flight safety instructions. We think “I’ve heard this all before” so we engage in some other activity and pay no attention at all.

Jacob had lived his entire life being distracted by the things going on around him, He was too busy thinking up his latest scheme to steal his brother’s birthright or blessing or figuring out how to get Laban to give him the wife he wanted. And lately he had been distracted as he fled from Laban and as he pondered how to protect himself and his family from Esau.

As far as we know there is only one other time previous to this where Jacob had taken the time to get alone with God and away from all the distractions around him. On his way from Beersheba to Haran about 20 years earlier he encountered God in a dream in which God promised to give him the land he was sleeping on. But Jacob’s reaction to that dream indicates that while he feared God, he didn’t fully trust God to do what He promised:

Genesis 28:20–22 ESV

20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, 21 so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, 22 and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you.”

Notice that Jacob’s commitment to God at that time was still conditional. He was only willing to follow God as long as God kept His promises. Now we all know that God is always faithful to keep His promises, but this kind of bargaining or negotiating with God indicates that Jacob still wasn’t fully committed to God.

But this time, things seem different. Jacob crosses the stream to get away from all the distractions of life and there he has a one-on-one encounter with God. And this time, we see a significant change in Jacob’s life. After the encounter 20 years earlier, Jacob went right back to living in fear. He kept trying to get what he wanted through deceit and manipulation of others. But this time his life is changed. If you read the next chapter, you’ll see that instead of his original plan to send others ahead of his with gifts to appease Esau, Jacob is no longer living in fear and he went ahead of everyone else to meet his brother.

This is not to say that Jacob lived a perfect life from that point forward, but there was undoubtedly a noticeable change in his life after that encounter.

The kind of dangerous prayers that we’re going to look at for the next three weeks require us to get away from the distractions of this world so we can get away and spend some time in solitude with God. That may look a little different for all of us, but at a minimum it means getting away from all our devices and finding a quiet place where we can just open our our Bibles and let God speak to us as we speak to Him. For some of us, like me, who are so used to reading our Bibles on our computer or phone, that means actually pulling out a paper Bible that won’t distract us with a bunch of notifications or provide opportunities for mindless distractions.

Self-awareness

We’ve already talked about the question that God asked Jacob. That question was an opportunity for Jacob to make an honest evaluation of his life. When he answered “Jacob”, he was admitting to himself and to God that his life had been characterized by deceit and manipulating others to get what he wanted.

All of the prayers that we will study in this series are going us to do the very same thing. If these prayers are going to have their intended impact in our lives, we are going to have to be honest with God and with ourselves about who we really are. And for some of us, that is going to be a very painful process, because there are some things in our lives that we have kept hidden for years. We’ve hidden them from others, we’ve hidden them from ourselves by ignoring or rationalizing them, and we’ve tried to hide them from God, even though that is just not possible.

Surrender

Up until this point, Jacob had always been very self-sufficient. He had lived life by coming up with his own plans and following his own ways and though he prayed on occasion, that was usually a last resort. Even as he approached his encounter with Esau, he had essentially come up with his own plan and asked God to bless it.

And all night Jacob continued to do things his way and he wrestled with God. Even when he is commanded to let go, he refuses, even after his hip has been put out of joint and he is in pain.

But finally, Jacob lets go and entrusts himself to God. When morning broke, Esau gave up on his previous plan, and instead of hiding behind all his servants and his family, Jacob led the way as his entourage went to meet Esau. Jacob still had real reason to fear what Esau might do to him. The last time he had seen his brother, Esau had vowed to kill him. But now he was willing to just trust God and quite trying to control everything himself.

If we’re willing to get alone with God, be honest about who we are and surrender our will to God’s, then we can expect that God will change our lives in three significant ways as a result of dangerous prayers.

THE IMPACTS OF DANGEROUS PRAYERS

They change our identity

In this encounter, God gives Jacob a new name. He will no longer be known as Jacob, the supplanter, but rather as Israel, which means “one who strives with God”. God gave Jacob a new name because He was also giving him a new identity and a new purpose in life. Later, in Genesis 35, God provides some further insight into that new purpose:

Genesis 35:10–12 ESV

10 And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” So he called his name Israel. 11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. 12 The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.”

God reveals that Jacob will be the father of a mighty nation and that kings, including Jesus, would come from his lineage.

When we pray these dangerous prayers, it is unlikely that God will change our name. But often He does give us a new identify or a new purpose or role.

They mark our lives

Jacob was left with a lasting physical reminder of his encounter with God. He was left with a limp that would constantly remind him of that night.

While we might not receive that kind of physical mark, it is often true that dangerous prayers become a turning point in our lives that we can look back upon and be reminded of some important work that God did in our lives.

They draw us closer to God

Jacob did have a relationship with God prior to this time. But as we have talked about already, from Jacob’s viewpoint that relationship was almost always about what he could get from God. But Jacob had never experienced the awe that was produced when he was face to face with God.

Dangerous prayers will always draw us closer to God in some way.

Dangerous prayers ask God to bless us by first breaking us.

Action

Most of you joining us this morning have already prayed at least one dangerous prayer in your life. I can’t think of a more dangerous prayer that committing your life 100% to Jesus. That is a prayer that meets all the criteria we’ve talked about today:

It requires you to get alone with God, free from distractions

It requires you to be aware that you are a sinner, that your sin separates you from God and that there is nothing you can do about that sin.

It requires you to surrender your own self-sufficiency and depend only on what Jesus has done for you.

And it is also a prayer that has the three impacts we talked about:

It gives you a new identity.

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

It marks your life. It is a decision that you can constantly look back on to remind yourself of the new life you have in Jesus.

It will draw you closer to God.

So, if you’ve never made that decision, would you pray that dangerous prayer today? Would you commit your life to Jesus for the first time and receive the blessing of becoming His brother?

For those of you who have already done that, I want to ask you to think about this question this week:

Am I willing to pray “dangerous prayers”?

Over the next three weeks, I am going to challenge all of us to do just that. But before we even look at the specific prayers we’ll be studying, are you willing to say to God, “Yes, I’m willing to pray those prayers. I’m willing to get alone with you and be honest about my life and surrender my self-sufficiency, so that you can use me as You desire”?

Inspiration

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of being in a prayer rut, praying the same old prayers over and over again. I don’t want to just be filling a bunch of jars with empty walnuts. So I’m not only willing to take a chance and pray some dangerous prayers, I’m actually excited about doing that. I hope that you’ll come with me on that journey. Let’s see how God will use these prayers in our lives for our good and His glory.