12-01-13 Prayer Truth and Error

Phil. 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Phil. 4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Our study of the book of Philippians

brings us today

to a topic that is at the same time

one of the most exciting

and one of the most danger-filled topics

in all of Christian doctrine.

We are going to look at some comments

Paul makes about PRAYER.

And just to help us appreciate

the volatile nature of this topic

I want you to look at the way in which just my announcing it

affected some of you.

Some of you immediately felt a little guilty

when I mentioned prayer.

You had that little religious twinge within you,

telling yourself you really should have been praying more than you have been.

And others of you immediately reached

for several of your personal prayer doctrines-

and are now anxiously waiting to see

if I’m going to give the “right” answers

or the “right” emphasis.

I would guess there are also some of you

who are anxiously hoping

maybe I can help you make some sense

out of what is certainly

one of the more confusing areas

in our relationship with our God.

Well, let me start by sharing with you

both what we are

and what we are not going to do today.

We are not going to launch into

an extended series on prayer

because we are not studying prayer,

we’re studying the book of Philippians.

We are, however,

going to look closely

at two remarkable verses about prayer

given to us by Paul in this book.

And in the process of looking at these two verses

we will need to lay some groundwork

for this whole topic.

And just to keep this whole discussion

in a proper Biblical context

I want to start with some general observations.

#1. First of all, let me start with a simple definition-

prayer as it is presented in the Bible

is nothing more or less

than a child of God talking with his or her heavenly Father.

Now I know at first glance

that sounds absurdly obvious.

But to be honest,

I believe it is that one truth

that Satan works hardest to defeat

of any other truth in the whole amazing world of prayer.

You see,

there is an intense,

calculated,

massive warfare on the part of Satan

to blind Christians to the true nature of prayer.

But what we seldom realize

is that Satan’s strategy

has two equally effective

but completely different

forms of attack.

The first one we would expect.

It is to keep the Christian

from ever discovering the truth

about the opportunity God has given us to pray,

to talk directly with Him,

to Him about anything in our lives.

And we’ll talk more about this

when we get into Paul’s comments

here in Philippians 4:5-6.

But there is another equally effective

and in some ways

far more devastating type of attack

that Satan brings against true prayer.

If Satan cannot get the Christian

to stay away from prayer altogether,

then he will seek to convince the Christian

either that prayer is a religious duty

or that it is an end in itself.

The religious duty aspect

may be the easier of the two for us to understand.

Satan’s underlying goal in this attack

is to take a gift God has given us

and turn it into a religious law

or duty we feel we must fulfill.

The life God offers us in Christ

is a life in which

He takes up residence within us

and literally transforms us

by living through us

from the inside out.

He does not call us to perform for Him,

He calls us to discover how to allow Him

to perform in us and through us.

The great enemy of that life in the Spirit

is man-made religion in all its forms.

And the life-blood of those systems

is a list of religious duties

that we believe we can perform

and in so doing improve our standing with

or our acceptability to God.

And let me tell you

how Satan handles this

when it comes to prayer.

The truth is

the privilege of praying is one of the most incredible gifts God has ever given us.

He has told us that,

because Christ has removed forever

our barrier of sin

between us and God,

we now live constantly in His presence

and have the unlimited privilege of speaking to Him,

sharing with Him,

communicating with Him forever.

Satan comes along and says,

“Every good Christian will have a “time of prayer” each day.

Have you prayed yet today?

And the underlying message is two-fold.

First, prayer is something you should

set aside a specific time for,

and second,

it is something you should do every day.

If you have a time of prayer every day

God will be pleased with you.

And I can offer you a little test

that can help you know

to what degree this lie has taken root

in your own life.

If you find yourself feeling guilty if you didn’t have your prayer time,

or pleased with yourself if you did,

then you’ve bought the lie.

If either of those responses crop up,

then prayer has ceased to be

simply communication with God

and has become an element in a religious system.

Converting prayer into a religious duty

is one of Satan’s strategies,

and the other is turning prayer into

an end in itself.

I can share with you

a popular cliche

that will explain part of what I’m trying to say here.

Have you ever seen a plaque

or a bumper sticker that says,

PRAYER CHANGES THINGS?

Folks,

prayer never has

and never will change anything.

Prayer doesn’t change things,

GOD changes things.

This lie takes a wide variety of forms.

There is a popular belief system in our nation

that suggests the act of praying

is good for a person.

Prayer and meditation are lumped together

and we are encouraged to do them

because they’re good for us.

They keep us in touch with our spirituality.

Now I will certainly acknowledge

that structuring our lives

in a way that reduces our stress levels

and allows us to mentally pull out of the battle on a regular basis

is a good thing.

But that is not the same thing

as Christian prayer.

Prayer as it is presented in the Bible

is nothing more or less

than a child of God talking with his or her heavenly Father.

Anything that makes prayer

an end in itself

is not Christian.

It’s like a marriage counselor saying,

“You know,

when a husband and wife reconnect in the evening

it’s really good for the husband to talk.

Talking is good.

It doesn’t matter where he talks,

it doesn’t matter whether his wife is in the same room,

or whether she’s listening.

It doesn’t really even matter if she’s home.

Just talking is good for the man.”

Now obviously that’s stupidity.

Talking in itself is nothing.

A husband and wife talking with one another about their day

is of great value.

Prayer in itself is nothing.

A Christian talking with his or her God

about his or her life

is of great value.

And there is one other aspect of this business

of making prayer an end in itself

that I just want to offer

a strong word of caution about.

The purpose of prayer

is sharing ourselves,

our lives,

and our concerns with our Heavenly Father.

If you ever find yourself

becoming more concerned

about how you pray

than you are about Who you’re praying to,

back off from it.

It isn’t your prayers God loves,

it’s you.

It isn’t your proper order

or proper technique,

or proper phrasing He enjoys,

it’s you He enjoys.

And then one final comment here -

if you ever begin to look at prayer

as a tool by which

you can get God to do what you want Him to do

you’ve been deceived.

God is not the great enemy

that we somehow force into submission to our will

through getting enough people praying

or through drumming up the right prayer techniques.

No person ever has

or ever will manipulate God

through prayer

or anything else.

All true prayer

begins with the affirmation

of the absolute goodness of our God.

Paul says it so well:

Rom. 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

Rom. 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

And as long as I’ve gotten into this,

I’m going to say one other thing here

that will likely open me up to misunderstanding.

I do believe

that there is a powerful

and extremely dangerous

satanic deception

that plays on our natural fleshly mistrust of God,

a deception in which well-meaning Christians

are deceived into believing

that we must somehow conquer God with our prayers,

finding the right approach,

the right technique,

the right prayer formula

that will finally motivate God

to do what we want done.

And I believe there are times

when Satan himself

will answer those prayers

the way we want them answered

in order to further fuel

our distorted concept of our Creator.

Our God is not an emotionally distant

semi-hostile spiritual force

we must somehow conquer

or grudgingly recruit

in order to meet our needs.

All healthy prayer begins

with the understanding that our God

knows us

and loves us

and cares about us more deeply

than anyone else ever has or ever will.

And then just one more broad observation

about true prayer -

every New Testament promise and instruction concerning prayer

is made exclusively to the Christian.

We in the United States

are very fond of having National Days of Prayer,

and political Prayer Breakfasts,

and times of national prayer for certain needs that catch the attention of the population.

We have invocations,

and benedictions at all sorts of public gatherings.

And underlying all of this activity

is the assumption that God responds to every human being’s prayers the same way.

Though we don’t put it this way,

we view prayers to God

in much the same way as we view

fan mail sent to some famous person.

We may even picture God

filled with delight on national days of prayer

with all those prayers coming up to Him.

And the underlying lie here once again

is the belief that it is the PRAYERS God loves,

no matter who says them

or what motivates them.

And let me just state the obvious again -

it isn’t prayer God loves,

it’s US.

And He certainly doesn’t need a little ego boost through a few million more prayers

coming His way.

The truth is

the promises surrounding prayer

are promises God has made exclusively to Christians.

God says nothing whatsoever to us

about the way in which He will respond

to the prayers of non-Christians.

Now, I didn’t say He won’t answer those prayers.

All I said is that He makes no promise to.

I know of no place in Scripture

where God says anything to us

about the prayers of non-Christians,

with the one obvious and glorious exception

of His absolute assurance that He hears,

and seeks,

and welcomes their cry to Him

for forgiveness,

and the salvation through Christ’s death

that He longs for them to know.

True prayer is a child of God

talking with his or her Father.

In that context our Heavenly Father

has given us strong affirmation

that He hears,

He cares deeply,

and He responds.

He says nothing to us

about how He responds

to the requests of those who are not His children.

It’s like this.

Back in her college days when my daughter, Joni, was still in our home at times

and she and I would go to the grocery store together

it was a common occurrence

for her to pick up several things she needed

and then drop them on the conveyer belt at the check stand.

When it came time to pay

I’d pay for everything.

Neither one of us even gave it a thought.

Now why would she do that?

Why would she assume that it was perfectly OK

to just drop her stuff on my conveyer belt?

Because I’m her father.

And why would I do that?

Why would I pay for all of it

without giving it a thought?

Because she’s my daughter.

Imagine, though, what would happen

if there would have been

another young lady behind us in line.

And when the little belt started moving

she reached over and placed her purchases in with ours

so that I would pay for hers as well.

There are some circumstances

in which I might go ahead

and include her things with my purchase.

But it would be a judgement call on my part.

I would have no commitment to her

to do so.

The only commitments God has given us concerning prayer

are commitments He has made

to those who have placed themselves

under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

You know what prayer is?

It’s just one of the many incredible fringe benefits

of living in a Father-child relationship with our Creator through Jesus Christ.

And with all of that background

next week we’ll take a look

at the remarkable comments Paul makes concerning prayer

in Philippians 4:6-7.