Prayer

Prayer is ingrained to our faith. It is the means by which we communicate with the God we believe
in. It occupies so much of our day to day living as a Christian. But for me it is one of the most
confusing aspects of our faith. I am going to admit to you now that I am actually not very good at it.
A lot of the time when I pray it seems false to me. Sometimes I cringe at what I am saying as it
seems contrite and petty. Other times I simply do not know what to say and so basically state plainly
to God that you know what is my heart so why should I bother praying anyway. Also being a teacher
I have had a lot of experience of one-sided conversations, trying to speak to someone or tell
somebody something and getting no response back. Sometimes that is what praying feels like to
me. This also leads me to a common complaint about the problem of unanswered prayer as well.
Jesus said “Ask and you will receive” and it is plainly obvious that that is not always the case. So
what is that all about?

Some of you are probably wondering why someone like me is doing a sermon on prayer if I have all
these questions. I am certainly not an expert on it. But maybe you can come on a journey with me
and see what I have discovered over these last few weeks as I have tried to tackle some of these
questions and shortcomings. At best it might be interesting, at worst you might be relieved that you
discover that you are far better at praying than I am, which is very likely. Just a small disclaimer
though – Prayer is a huge subject and there are giants of faith who have been tackling this all their
lives so I will barely scratch the surface.

What I will try and cover briefly in this short time is these three areas.

1) What is the point of praying?

2) How are prayers answered?
3) How do we pray?

What is the point of praying?

There are two viewpoints for this question that I can see. One is how the secular world views prayer
generally and the other is how Christians tackle the issue on a theological level. I have
unfortunately been exposed to a number of memes on the internet that gives a good indication of
what the secular world thinks of it. Here are some of them:

As can be plainly seen, Atheists do not see any point of prayer at all and see it as a weakness, if not a
laziness on our behalf. Of course an Atheist does not have any time for prayer, but seeing memes
like this does make me pause and ask the question – is there really any point to prayer?

Regardless of the effect of prayer (which we will get to later) society as a whole seems geared to
making prayer redundant in our lives. Scientific developments that allow us to understand more
about the natural order of things has meant that people have to pray less about the weather or
things of a medical nature for example. If crops aren’t growing it could be down to the fertiliser or
irrigation issues that can be fixed, so no need to pray about it. If we have a thorn in our side, we can
have a scan to see what it is and maybe it is something that can be operated on.

Actually finding time to pray can be a real problem as time is a resource that is the favourite food for
a great number of activities and is eaten up very quickly. My own feelings about looking forward to
spending time with God can quickly turn to annoyance as I now have to try and fit in time to pray
amongst my busy schedule. An activity that should be peaceful and joyful becomes another chore
that I do not seem to have time for.

Society also honours the high achievers and wealth is seen as a status. Prosperity itself dilutes the
need of prayer. Why bother asking for our daily bread when our own talents and resources gets us
all that we want. Our pride might obscure the fact that those talents and resources might have
come from God in the first place. The word “independence” is seen as a badge of high esteem and it
is respected by society. Media and literature support this idea that independence is a good thing and
should be an aspiration for everyone. This is of course incompatible with dependence on God, in
fact dependence on anything is seen as a weakness.

When dependence is required however, we now have Therapists and support groups taking the
place of God to help people through difficult times. The fact that we have therapists and support
groups is not in itself a bad thing but it is another barrier preventing the person reaching out to God.

The unpredictability and inconsistency of the results of prayer can also turn people off it as well, for
instance how many people’s prayers for parking spaces come true yet the ones that ask to save
people from cancer don’t? Is getting a parking space more important to God than someone’s life. A
non-believer might certainly get that impression.

The bible also teaches us that God is unchangeable so why bother to pray to try and change his
mind? If it is against his will, isn’t prayer futile. And probably one of the hardest things to deal with
prayer is summed up nicely with this story:

In Jerusalem, an American female journalist heard about an old Rabbi who visited the Kotel, the
Western Wall to pray twice a day every day for over five decades. In an effort to check out the story,
she goes to the holy site and there he is. She watches the old man at prayer and after about 45
minutes, when he turns to leave, she approaches him for an interview.

“I’m Rebecca Smith from CNN, sir, how long have you been coming to the Wailing Wall and
praying?”

“For about 50 years,” he informs her.

“That’s amazing! What do you pray for?”

“I pray for peace between the Jews and Arabs. I pray for all the hatred to stop and I pray for all of
our children to grow up in safety and friendship.”

“And how do you feel, sir, after doing this for 50 years?”

“Like I’m talking to a brick wall!”

I do wonder if we are honest how many of us really feel that our prayers are answered, or even
listened too. The problem with an invisible hidden God is that he is invisible and hidden which can
be somewhat or a hindrance to a two-way dialogue. However, on this point it could be argued that
when God did actually turn up and was physically present to dialogue with, did it actually make a
difference. When God appeared as a pillar of fire and a pillar of smoke and dwelled within the
tabernacle did this prevent the Israelites from going astray? When God was walking in the Garden
with Adam and talking to him face to face, did this prevent Adam from eating the fruit?

So what is the answer? Should we pray? Is there any point? Well actually yes we should, because
first and foremost we pray because Jesus did.

The fact that Jesus came to earth tells us exactly how God sees us. When we pray are we looking up
to an almighty, all powerful deity who has much bigger concerns than our paltry problems or do we
look at it from God’s perspective as his vastness is contradicted by the intimacy God wants with us as
shown through his son. He came to earth to have a relationship with us and a relationship starts
with dialogue. Someone probably told me at some point before I got to know her, that my wife was
a wonderful woman and she is, but until I actually started talking to her and having a relationship
with her I could not discover that fact for myself. Talking to someone, helps you to get to know
them. The more you know them, the more you may trust them, the more you trust them the more
you may love them.

Scripture tells us that God wants that intimacy because as Paul says in Galatians 4:6

Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out,
“Abba Father”.

The Spirit invites us to call God by the same name that Jesus did. Such a personal intimate name.
He even goes one step further to help us when we don’t know how to talk to God – Romans 8:26
says

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for,
but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.
If we are not talking to God – the Spirit might jump in and do it for us. That longing for intimacy is
also reflected in the way Jesus tells us that we are his friends if we believe in him. John 15:13-15
states

14
You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant
does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned
from my Father I have made known to you.
God wants us to talk to him. Jesus talked to his father all the time and his prayers held back nothing.
He prayed for intercession, for recharging, He prayed as if it would make a difference.

So yes we should pray, absolutely. But what about the problem of the futility of it if God’s will is set,
and what about the elephant in the room – that of unanswered prayer?

There are some instances in the Bible where is certainly seems that God changed his mind. One of
the more noted ones being where Moses pleaded with God not to wipe out the Israelites after the
Golden Calf incident.

Exodus 32:9-14
9
“I have seen these people,” the LORD said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people.
10
Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.
Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11
But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God. “LORD,” he said, “why should your anger
burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty
hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to
kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce
anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham,
Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as
numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised
them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the LORD relented and did not bring
on his people the disaster he had threatened.
There are other incidents where it seems that God does actually change his mind so his will isn’t set
in stone. Is this actually the case or is something else happening here?

One argument is that although God’s nature doesn’t change, his will can and does. One of God’s
immutable attributes is that he is all loving. Surely then it would be in God’s nature to listen and
respect a plea of mercy from his most trusted prophet. However, what I believe is more likely is that
God is giving Moses an opportunity to tap into His grace and mercy. Grace and mercy that he so
wants to give out. So God is not in essence changing his mind but due to his divine middle
knowledge God allows Moses to make a free choice to plead with him and God already has a plan for
that choice that Moses will make. Prayer here still might seem a little redundant but it seems that
God is inviting Moses to be a part of his plan in the future of his race and by doing this Moses and
the Israelites are exposed to God’s grace and mercy. We will come back to this later.

So moving onto the big elephant in the room, that of unanswered prayer, we will now look to our
next point which is that of how prayers are answered.

How are prayers answered?

One of the reasons I sometimes do not like to pray the big prayers is because of the fear of what will
happen if they are not answered. Whenever I pray for something and nothing happens, there is
always that little doubt in the back of my mind that is saying…..”You are talking to a brick wall!”

I also get thrown by the inconsistency of answered prayers. You can certainly make the conclusion
that a passenger who survived a plane crash because he prayed was saved by a miracle and a direct
answer to prayer, but what about the 400 or so others who didn’t survive who I am sure as their
plane was going down was praying feverently. You could come up with any number of scenarios like
that including 9/11. Did God answer that one prayer and reject the others. That is certainly a
possibility but we also need to consider the harsh reality that God just permits bad things to happen
and we just have to wait to see what the reason was. Jesus made this very clear that sometimes evil
happens like the blind man born blind or the eighteen people who died when the tower in Siloam
fell on them. Jesus rebuke here was that bad things are going to happen anyway, just make sure you
are right with God before they do.

But all this seems to be in contradiction to what the Bible says we can ask of God in prayer.
Scripture is teasing us by saying that we can ask and we will receive. The verse that all non-believers
like to quote when mocking prayer is the one from Matthew 7:7

7
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
8
For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will
be opened.
However when we read the same verse in Luke we start to see it in a more revealing context. Look
at Luke 11:5-10

5
Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say,
‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no
food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already
locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even
though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your
shameless audacity[e] he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.
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; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who
knocks, the door will be opened.

You can see here that this famous phrase comes on the heels of the parable of the persistent friend,
so what does this tell us? David Pawson, a renowned biblical scholar informs us that a more
accurate translation of the verse is “to keep asking and to keep knocking”. God is asking for
persistence here, essentially a test of faith. Keep asking and you will receive. We only have to read
through the Bible to see stories where people had to wait considerable time in order for some
prayers to be answered. Some unfortunately never saw them answered in their own lifetime. But
when they were it was after persistent prayer. I have also heard more contemporary stories of
parents or grandparents who pray every day for their children to come to Christ only to find that
sometimes it can take an entire lifetime of prayer. God has his own timetable and sometimes we
just have to keep praying until something happens.

But there are more verses in the bible that are similar to the one just mentioned that seem to
promise answers to all your prayers. Take these examples.

Matthew 21:21-22

21
Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was
done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it
will be done. 22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

Matthew 18:19
19
“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done
for them by my Father in heaven.

Mark 11:24
24
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be
yours.

John 14:14
14
You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

They seem to offer us the world, but let’s look at them in context. Matthew 21 gives us a caveat that
before we can have the power to move mountains we need to have faith and no doubts. Having
faith and no doubts invariable means that you want to follow God and conform to his will. Matthew
18:19 comes straight after how you deal with sin in the church and is essentially saying that if you as
the church are judging the sinning person correctly then God will honour your decision as you are
undertaking God’s will within the church. “It will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” Two or
more gathered provides a strong witness and God will honour what they decide about the person at
fault. This is not an invite to ask God for anything and it will be done in heaven, no matter how
many people are asking. Mark 11:24 is a repeat of the story in Matthew about the fig tree and the
again the caveat is having faith in God. If you have faith in God then by definition you would like to
follow the path he has set for you, and God will indeed grant you anything you want in order to fulfill
that aim. Finally looking at the entire verse in John in context:

12
Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do
even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in
my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name,
and I will do it.

Again we can see clearly here that if you are doing the works Christ is doing, or essentially doing
God’s will then you can indeed ask anything of God and he will do it.

So the common theme here seems to be that if you are doing God’s will then you will get a positive
answer to prayer. The more I think about this the more I believe this to be the case. When I read
stories of people like Brother Andrew who started up the Open Doors organisation to aid persecuted
Christians around the world, his travels reads like a long list of miraculous answer to prayer. When
he was attempting to smuggle Bibles into countries where Christianity was outlawed and was
stopped on the borders to be searched, he faced a real possibility of imprisonment. His first
response was to pray and miraculous things happened, every time safe passage was granted. On his
mission when money was running out, Brother Andrew prayed and again he was always provided for
miraculously. I think in this example we can say with a high degree of confidence that Brother
Andrew was following the will of God so his prayers were for the most part answered. So the trick
here really is discovering exactly what God’s will is. “Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven”.

There are other factors we could consider why prayers are not answered. Some are just frivolous
and are not worth answering. God is obviously the judge of that. Janis Joplin’s famous song, “Oh
Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz” springs to mind. In other cases it might be the prayee that
is the cause of the unanswered prayer. The Bible teaches that sin disrupts prayer. Isaiah 1:15-17
states:

When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
16
Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
17
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.[a]
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.

This implies that sin needs to be confessed before we can have a clear path to God. “Forgive us our
trespasses”

Sometimes our prayers might just be contradictory. For instance if every athlete starting a race
prayed to God to help them win, who does God answer? Especially if it was the Christian World
championships.
The great contemporary philosopher Peter Parker said in his dialogue with Mary Jane that “With
great power comes great responsibility.” And he is absolutely right. Some prayers are refused
because some people simply cannot handle the blessings they are asking for. You might pray to be
like Billy Graham evangelising thousands but would you actually be able to cope with all the
pressure. Or would pride develop in you because of the power and corrupt your heart.

Looking at some of the things that have been said, an answer to a prayer might simply be no for
good reason. If God just answered “Yes” to every prayer, the consequences could be catastrophic.

CLIP – Bruce Almighty – The scene where he answers “yes” to every prayer and chaos follows.

After all is said and done, we can perhaps take comfort in the fact that Jesus himself had to deal with
unanswered prayers. His prayers for his disciples did not turn out the way he wanted while he was
alive, but they came to fruition after his resurrection as they were refined by their trails. His prayer
in Gethsemane was refused as it was against the Father’s will. In the end Jesus said “Thy will be
done” and faced his destiny at the Cross. Even the son of God himself understood the futility of
praying against the will of the Father.

We have talked a lot about unanswered prayer, but how does answered prayer manifest itself?
There are variously level of subtleties in this. Sometimes it is clear and obvious, God gives you
exactly what you ask for, but more often than not your prayer maybe answered in a way you didn’t
expect. You may well be the answer to someone’s prayer.

Gods works in partnership with his Body here on earth. We are his fallible tools. He assembled a
bunch of misfits – almost like a Biblical Suicide Squad and handed us keys to the kingdom. The body
analogy here is so apt and that is precisely why it was used by Paul. We are the hands and feet of
Christ himself so we should be doing His work and part of the work is to be an answer to someone’s
prayer.

In dire circumstances when we ask what is God doing, should we really be asking what are God’s
people doing? We are “In Christ” – a phrase repeated 164 times in the New Testament. Those we
minister to, Christ minsters to, those we forgive, Christ forgives, when we extend mercy to the
broken we reach out with the hands of Christ himself.

I have concluded that Prayer is only effective if it meets the will of God. Now we are incredibly
fortunate that the will of God is for us to know him and live life to the fullest which alternatively
means wanting what is best for us. From our point of view however, we don’t always know what is
best for us and we can be distressed by the journey getting there. But on that journey we are being
tempered and formed into the likeness of Christ. When we pray for something we want, maybe our
answer is patience or rather pointing to something we need instead. When we pray for healing from
an ailment, maybe our answer is to endure to be made humble or more resilient. When we pray for
release from hardship, maybe the answer is to learn so that you may be an answer to prayer for
someone else. In the end it is all about trust and faith in the one we are praying to. To build that
trust and faith we need to keep praying to Him until the change happens in us and we can see that
God has been talking constantly back to us all along.

This brings us to my final point which is How to pray.

How to Pray
As I stressed at the beginning, I am no expert in this subject, so what I am relaying here is simply
what I have discovered about how to pray. Philip Yancey in his book of Prayer gives a nice list to
follow to help guide us - Praise, Gratitude, Begging, Pleading, Cutting Deals and ending with fruitless
whining. He was of course saying this in jest. Luckily we can turn to Jesus to get more reliable help
and he provided us a template in the Lord’s Prayer. Some of things I am going to mention follow that
pattern.

Firstly prayers in haste, though sometimes unavoidable, rarely put you in the right place. God invites
us to be still and know that he is God. The Latin for “be still” is vacate – God invites us to take a
holiday. Stop being God yourself and let him be God. Acknowledge him as who he is and just be in
his presence. “Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name”

As mentioned before we need to confess our sins before God. Sin acts as a barrier to
communication and I have felt that myself. When I have sinned and then I pray to God without
confessing, my words come out empty and hollow and it really feels like ash in my mouth. If I know I
am right with God before I pray it genuinely does feel different. God knows you intimately (Psalm
139) so there is no hiding from him. From this God invites you to be humble and honest. A Pastor
named Haddon Robinson used to say to his congregation before he started “God if this people knew
about me what you know about me, they wouldn’t listen to a word I say.” God wants that honestly
and humility from you, not because he doesn’t know all your darkest secrets, but because by
stripping yourself bare before God, he can let you know that he accepts you where you are. And
then the change can begin.

Jesus told us to go into the closet when we pray so we can be honest with God. As we go about our
daily lives we wear masks disguising who we really are. The first one is what we wear when in the
presence of work colleagues and acquaintances, it is the most fake one of all. Strip a layer off the
mask and we start to reveal more of who we are and this is the face we show to our friends and
close family. But there is a third level with the mask completely removed and that is the level God
wants to communicate with. When we go into that private room and lock the door we can be that
person.

Jesus also stated that he rejects a pious prayer and accepts someone who simply screams “God have
mercy on me a sinner!” This honest approach is what get God’s attention. One of my favourite
Psalms is Psalm 51 because I have found myself using it often as a prayer. I wish I could have heard
the original tone and style that it was said in as I believe it would have revealed the honesty and
humility in David’s voice.

Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.

3
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
 and justified when you judge.
5
Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6
Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
7
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9
Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.
14
Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15
Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17
My sacrifice, O God, is[b] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.

The honesty expressed in most of the Bible is refreshing, especially the Psalms as they can be angry,
whiny, petty, remorseful, explosive, loud, and irreverent. Jerimiah gripes about unfairness and Job
laments. It is clear God wants us honest.

We also need to be bold in our prayers as well. We have already mentioned about Moses’ plea to
God about the Israelites and there is also the incident with Abraham and the fate of Sodom. God
wants us to tap into his grace and mercy. He also invites disagreement and through the dialogue,
although God doesn’t change, we do. We become empowered or like a clever manager, through our
arguments with God he will gently persuade us that his way is better and we arrive at that
conclusion feeling uncoerced and satisfied.

The example given to us by the persistent friend and widow instructs that would should also be
persistent in our prayers. “Pray without ceasing” Pauls says. Although taken literally this would lead
to a rather dull life and possibly very annoying for anyone living with you, what is really means is not
giving up on prayer. Don’t ever come to a point in your life where you cease to pray at all. Don’t
abandon the God of hope and say “There is no use praying”. Jesus is very jealous for us to learn this
lesson.
Finally as the Psalms go through their complaints they always bring it round to praise and worship of
God. As we learn more about who God is our prayers come more naturally to praise before petition.
We will find that praying does not bring the presence of God to us but prayer will be in response to
the presence of God all around us as we realise that he is with us already and has never left our side.

In the end I think it comes down to authenticity - God has created a longing and desire within us to
experience a real and authentic relationship with himself. And while Adam and Eve walked freely
'naked' in the garden talking with God, we have lost that. Nowadays, we may no longer be hiding
ourselves behind bushes, but we are hiding ourselves behind these masks. And God wants us to walk
again with him 'exposed and vulnerable" so he can give us life in all its fullness. We just need to talk.

For thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, Forever and ever. Amen!