Pray

Pray
Pt. 1 – Intimate
by Steve Ely

1. Introduction
   Prayer is one of the foundational elements of Christianity. Folks that don’t consider themselves Christian and have no intention of ever embracing Christ know that prayer is a basic tenant of Christianity. And yet, as one man said, “Of all the duties enjoined by Christianity none is more essential and yet more neglected than prayer.”

A relationship with Christ minus prayer is like trying to grow wheat without planting seed or construct a house without a foundation. You can’t separate the two. However, as foundational, essential, and basic as prayer is to our walk with Christ most of the people I talk to fall into one of two categories when it comes to developing a prayer life:  a. confused or b. frustrated. 

They are confused on how to pray. The mechanics of prayer baffles them. They find themselves stumbling around with seemingly no ability to communicate or to listen.  Frustration results from silence, failed attempts at carving out substantial time for dialogue with God, or they have mastered the mechanics of prayer but feel no real connection or communion with God.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I want to talk about prayer and let’s see if we can’t move past confusion and frustration with peeks into Scripture that may assist.  I want us to start with one of the most revealing prayer meetings ever recorded in Scripture. In fact, it is the last protracted, pull away prayer sessions that Jesus will have while on earth. It is also a time of prayer that reveals some important things regarding the intimacy of prayer!

1. Text

Mark 14:32-39
They came to an area called Gethsemane. Jesus told his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James, and John with him. He plunged into a sinkhole of dreadful agony. He told them, “I feel bad enough right now to die. Stay here and keep vigil with me.” Going a little ahead, he fell to the ground and prayed for a way out: “Papa, Father, you can-can’t you?-get me out of this. Take this cup away from me. But please, not what I want-what do you want?” He came back and found them sound asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, you went to sleep on me? Can’t you stick it out with me a single hour? Stay alert, be in prayer, so you don’t enter the danger zone without even knowing it. Don’t be naive. Part of you is eager, ready for anything in God; but another part is as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.” He then went back and prayed the same prayer. Returning, he again found them sound asleep. They simply couldn’t keep their eyes open, and they didn’t have a plausible excuse. 

III. Intimacy Revealed
Moments before the most painful and horrendous hours of His life Jesus takes time to pray. The famous and oft painted scene of Jesus kneeling next to a rock so burdened and overwhelmed by what is about to happen that sweat turns to blood teaches us three things about the intimacy of prayer that we must know.

1. You are intimate with who you pray to.
   Hear the intimacy of this phrase . . . papa! Jesus’ prayer reveals the relationship He had established with who He was praying to! 

“Those who know God the best are the richest and most powerful in prayer. Little acquaintance with God, and strangeness and coldness to Him, make prayer a rare and feeble thing.”

This is why prayer is so important! You can’t become intimate with a God that you don’t pray to. In fact, you can worship and not be intimate. Go back to the story of Elijah at Mt. Carmel and you see fanatical worshippers who are willing to dance, shout, even cut themselves to show their devotion, but there was no intimacy. Elijah, with no elaborate or overt acts of worship, and a 66-word prayer presses into the heart and hands of God. 

The time you spend in prayer dictates your intimacy level with God. Although I do believe in set aside moments of prayer, I also believe one of the most effective and missed types of prayer is the “without ceasing” prayer. Daily, moment by moment, minute by minute awareness and recognition of His presence that leads to constant conversation about the common things and complex things of life. 

Jesus practiced specific times of prayer. However, you also see the conversational relationship He had with the Father when at the tomb of a friend He simply talks to God, as He hangs on the cross He talks to God, as He walks along a path He talks to God, daily moments of intimacy.

I think too many of us run from prayer, discount the importance of prayer, and separate prayer to a special class of people called prayer warriors because we are convinced that we can never become disciplined in long, secluded seasons of prayer. So since we miss the prayer meetings we assume that we aren’t prayer warriors. And in the frustration, we miss the daily talks with God! The truth is God just wants to talk frequently and commonly throughout the day! 

In your life with whom do you feel the most intimate? Those with whom you are in constant contact. The person who calls and there is no need to ask, “Who is this?” because you are so familiar with their voice. The person with whom it is unnecessary to stop conversation and give background information because they have been so intimately involved in your life that they already know that information. 

The conversation is just a continuation of what you have already talked about. Each time Jesus returned to prayer after confronting His disciples He simply hit the unpause button and picked up where He had left off. How often do we let what should be a pause button become a stop button because we aren’t intimate enough to pick up where we left off?

Are you in constant prayer to the point that you have a …. papa, first name basis, family level of intimacy with God or when you pray does it feel like you have to start all over from the beginning. 

We should be so intimate with God that our prayers should simply be “to be continued” prayers. A never-ending conversation with Him.

Your intimacy level is not determined by prayer meetings, but rather by prayer lifestyle. Take God into your car, your job, and your hobbies. You will know if you are as intimate with God as you should be when someone asks you, “Who were you talking to? I saw you in the car next to me and you were talking to someone, but no one else was in the car!”

1. You are intimate with who you pray for.
   The truth is our prayer list reveals a good bit about us. It reveals who you are intimate with because if you are intimate with someone you will be compelled to pray for them. You will be so intimately acquainted with their needs, pain, concerns that you will pray for them. Your prayer list also reveals your heart and your compassion level. Do you only pray for you? I am convinced that most of us spend too much time in prayer for me and mine and never move to a deeper place of prayer which is you and yours.

If you want to develop a deeper relationship with others . . . if you want to be connected, then begin praying for them. 

If you go back to Jesus’ extended prayer, which He prayed moments before He went into the garden, it reveals the intimacy He had with His disciples. It is found in John 17 and is 26 verses long. Out of the 26 verses Jesus spends 20 of them crying out to God for His disciples. He asks God to keep them, give them joy, unity, and that He will sanctify them. His intimacy with His disciples dominated His prayer. Whose needs dominate your prayers? Whose situation dominates your prayers? 

I challenge you to open up your prayer list. Lengthen it. Broaden it. Get so intimately involved in folks lives that you can actually pray for what they need.

Too many of our prayers are too self-focused and therefore we have no intimacy with anyone else because we can’t get past us!

1. You are intimate with who you pray with.
   I want you to stop and think about Jesus a second. Son of God. Ability to raise the dead. He can discern hearts and even knows the thoughts of men. Divinity in the flesh. The Word that created all things from the beginning and the Word that will continue until the end. And yet, Jesus needed prayer partners! Jesus wasn’t content to pray in isolation! He gives us a glimpse of His heart because He involves others in His prayer life. 

So here is the million-dollar question . . . if Jesus needed people to pray with what do you need? I am thankful that in your private prayer time God shows up and miracles take place.  I am thankful you share those intimate moments with our maker and you are energized and discover intimacy with Him. However, Jesus shows us that we must also find intimacy by praying with others! 

You may grow very close to those you vacation with. You will grow close to those you carpool with. You will grow intimate with those you eat with. However, there is a supernatural bond that can only take place as you pray with someone. It is the people that you share needs with and pray with that will be attached at a soul level. You need that type of intimacy with someone. This takes relationship to a depth that cannot be achieved any other way. When we learn to pray with someone else it forces us to become transparent and real with that person. It moves us beyond surface relationship! You can attend this church and never become intimate with anyone if all you do is talk to them. It is when you take time to look someone in the eyes and say, “What can I pray with you about?” that intimacy is gained. Entrance is granted into each other’s hearts. 

Who do you pray with? Who prays with you!

Prayer is about intimacy! Prayer is the basement of our life. It is the ground floor. It is the foundation for intimacy with God and each other!

Do you have a strong and secure foundation?

Pray
Pt. 2 – Prayer Patterns
by Steve Ely

1. Introduction
   Last week we began to talk about prayer and how it is essential in our lives as Christians. It is the foundation of communication with God and with others. Your prayer life reveals your intimacy levels. Who you pray to, for and with reveals how “deep” you are in your walk with your Father and with His followers! In fact, when someone tells you they prayed for you they have just given you the greatest gift they could ever give you.

My prayer is that over the course of the week you spent some intimate time talking to God. I also trust you prayed for and with someone else.

Today I want to go into a different passage that I believe shows us some things about prayer that would really help change our prayer life from “Thank you for this day, bless mom, bless dad, talk to you later” type of prayers.

The passage I want us to examine is found in Luke and is a very abbreviated form of what we call the Lord’s prayer.  Jesus gives us a pattern!

1. Text

Luke 11:1-4
One day he was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said, “Master, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” So he said, “When you pray, say, Father, Reveal who you are. Set the world right. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.”

III. Patterns

1. Prayer is a learning process.

It is interesting to me that the disciples realized that they really didn’t know how to pray. They asked for training and instruction. They weren’t satisfied or content with their present level and ability to communicate with the Father. This inquiry reveals to us the need to learn to pray. You don’t get saved and suddenly have a master’s degree in prayer. We are all in the learning process of prayer. Each of us must learn to pray! 

My concern is that many of us never try to learn or improve in prayer. We are still praying at the same level and depth that we did when we got saved 10 years ago. When your child is 2 you don’t mind him/her communicating simplistically (give me, hold me, change me), but when they are 23 you expect them to be able to carry on a mature and multi-faceted conversation. Why should our prayer life be any different? Some of us need to examine our prayer life closely this morning. Has your prayer life matured? Is it deeper? Are you learning to more effectively communicate with the Father? 

Is anyone trying to learn to pray like you? Something about Jesus’ ability to pray intrigued the disciples to want to know what He knew. If you want to know if your prayer life has matured one way to know is if when others hear you pray, they want to be around you to learn. I am not talking about being able to impress them with fancy language or your eloquence (all you have to do is hang around preachers to pick up this skill). I am talking about when someone hears you pray, they recognize your connection to the Father and they want to learn that. 

I can still remember as a boy going past my parent’s room late at night and seeing my dad kneeled at the side of the bed and hearing the depth of his prayer. I often reflect on hearing Dr. Beacham pray in the office. These men made me want to learn to pray!

So, Jesus honors their hunger (as He will yours) and gives them instructions  on how to pray.

1. Pray God be revealed.
   Jesus could have started off by saying pray for world peace. Pray for economic stability. Pray for miracles. However, His first instruction was to pray that God would reveal Himself. Jesus knew that the many of the things that we spend significant time asking for and pleading for would be resolved if we would simply get a revelation of God! 

Need provision – get a revelation of God as your provider.

Need healing – get a revelation of God as your healer.

Need peace – get a revelation of God as a peace speaker.

Need protection – get a revelation of God as the one who will never leave or forsake you.

I think our prayers often reveal a lack of revelation! Our lives, our outlook, our perspective, our priorities, our problems would dramatically change if we had revelation. 

Lack of revelation leads to lack of preparation, separation, participation, and sanctification! Our narrow revelation of God leads to a shallow experience with God!

I challenge you during your next prayer time to ask God to reveal Himself in your life, in your kids, in your marriage, in your checkbook. 

1. Pray the World Right
   Jesus instructs us to pray for our world to be set right! He doesn’t say sing, criticize, or rail the world right. We underestimate the ability of our prayers. Before we pray for our world . . . we are told to pray for our world! Our prayers must be “other” oriented. Our prayers are too confined to us. Our prayers must expand beyond us and ours to the world around us! 

 

Our needs become smaller when we view them through the lens of world needs. Maybe that is why some of us never pray for others.  Maybe we are so self-centered that we want to remain the focus of our attention!

Let’s determine in our prayer life to start with the needs of others! To put the pain of those around us before the needs of our own lives! Remember what you make happen for others God makes happen for you. As you pray for others it always seems that God then causes someone to pray for your need. 

Prayer leads to action! When we begin to pray for the needs of others, we will be prompted to take action! We may very well be the answer to the prayer we are praying! Praying for someone’s need is one of the greatest gifts you can give someone.

1. Pray for our needs.
   Most of us have a handle on this. We know how to pray for our needs. What we fail to master is the placement of that prayer. It comes after we have praised. It comes after we have prayed that God would reveal Himself which reveals our deep-seated dependency on Him. It comes after we pray the broader prayer for others. For most of us our prayer over our needs dominates the time and scope of our prayers. We never get past our shopping list of requests. Jesus says simply state our basic needs (3 square meals) and then move on knowing that our Father will hear and respond.

Are your needs the prominent feature of your prayers?

1. Pray for forgiveness and protection.
   There are several important things I want to draw your attention to here:
2. There should be constant checks to make sure that we are living forgiven with the Father and with others.

Johnny had been misbehaving and was sent to his room. After a while he emerged and informed his mother that he had thought it over and then said a prayer. “Fine,” said the pleased mother. “If you ask God to help you not to misbehave, He will help you.” “Oh, I didn’t ask Him to help me not to misbehave,” said Johnny. “I asked Him to help you put up with me.” 

Too many of us have been forgiven once but fail to continue to live forgiven. We just want God and others to learn to put up with us! We need to check to make sure we aren’t misbehaving in the eyes of God so that we won’t misbehave in the eyes of others!

2. Living forgiven demands that we live forgiving!
   It is absolutely essential that we pray our way into offering forgiveness at the level at which it has been offered to us!

I find way too many of us demand forgiveness, but never extend the same forgiveness to others. I am finding that forgiven people seem to be the most offendable, angry, revenge-oriented people on the planet! Jesus said forgiveness should be our calling card!

Some of you need to spend some time in this type of prayer! You desperately need the forgiveness quotient to go up in your life! Who do you need to forgive?

If we don’t forgive, then we feel exposed and vulnerable and wonder why, not realizing that our own spirit of unforgiveness exposes us to gaps in protection!

3. Forgiveness positions us for protection by keeping us safe from us!
   Forgiveness stands in the path of protection. Notice the order! Forgive and then comes protection. I think we underestimate the power that forgiveness and unforgiveness has in our lives.

Jesus followed up His instruction to pray that we will be forgivers with instruction to pray that we would be kept safe from ourselves!

Jesus acknowledges that there is an enemy out there and that we need to be protected from Him. However, He makes it clear that our #1 enemy is not out there, it is in here! What we tend to blame on the enemy should be blamed on us. Due to unforgiveness, silly choices, sin, and our own hard headedness we can derail our walk with Christ faster than the devil ever could!

The Bible teaches us to give credit where credit is due. Many of us are giving the devil way too much credit! He doesn’t do as much to us as we do to ourselves! Take the credit you deserve! 

Some of you just need to ask God to protect you from you! You are self-destructing. You are repeating patterns. You are falling in the same places. God help me! God fix me! God change me!

Pray
Pt. 3 – Prayer Walls
by Steve Ely

1. Introduction
   We have talked about how prayer reveals our intimacy levels. We are intimate with who we pray to, for and with reveals how “deep” you are in your walk with your Father and with. Then last week we discussed pattern. How many of you have been consciously praying the pattern? God be revealed. God set our world right. God meet my basic needs. God help me to be forgiven and forgiving. God protect me from me and the enemy.  This pattern pulls at the heart of God. If we are going to pray, then we might as well pray like God!

There is an obscure passage of Scripture found in a book in the Bible that most people don’t read very much because of its dark and dreary inclination. But hidden in it’s 3rd chapter is a statement that describes with supreme accuracy most of us and how we feel when it comes to prayer. The writer is discussing his relationship with God and his prayer life and he makes this statement:

1. Text

Lamentations 3:8-9
And though I cry and shout, he has shut out my prayers. He has blocked my way with a high stone wall.

Or perhaps even more like us in the Message translation:

Even when I cry out and plead for help, he locks up my prayers and throws away the key. He sets up blockades with quarried limestone. He’s got me cornered.

III. Blocked and Stopped
Have you ever felt like this? Have you ever felt like God was not only not listening, but perhaps was shutting out or throwing out your prayers? Have you ever felt like shaking your fist at God and asking Him why He refused to listen and respond? Ever felt like your prayers were blocked and stopped? I know that is the case in my prayer life at times. What I have discovered is that according to Scripture there are at least 3 reasons why our prayers are locked up, shut out, and stopped. We have direct control over 2 of these blocking factors. The third is out of our hands but must still be recognized and factored into the equation of our prayer life!

1. The Wall of Iniquity
   The first wall that can block and stop our prayers is revealed clearly and multiple times in Scripture. Listen to:

Psalms 66:18 – If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: (If I had been cozy with evil, the Lord would never have listened.)

Proverbs 28:9 – He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination. (God has no use for the prayers of the people who won’t listen to him.) – Can you blame Him? I don’t have a lot of patience when my kids won’t listen to me. When they ask my advise and then won’t do what I told them to do why bother listening or answering?

Isaiah 59:1-3 – Look! Listen! God’s arm is not amputated—he can still save. God’s ears are not stopped up—he can still hear. There’s nothing wrong with God; the wrong is in you. Your wrongheaded lives caused the split between you and God. Your sins got between you so that he doesn’t hear.

Your hands are drenched in blood, your fingers dripping with guilt, Your lips smeared with lies, your tongue swollen from muttering obscenities.

Did you see the wall? Our own regard for iniquity. Our own sin blocks our prayers. I hate these passages of Scripture! My sin keeps God from hearing me! The silence I endure is my fault. 

This is why I am constantly challenging you to live pure. I know it is hard. It is a constant struggle to keep our mind stayed on the Lord, to capture the mind of Christ. However, your prayer life depends on it. I know God responds to the cry of a sinner because He responded to mine. However, if we believe the Word then it is those of us who are His children, the saved, that He doesn’t listen to if we have regard for iniquity. That is a higher standard. Didn’t say we had committed sin just regarded it. You can block your own prayers! We build walls that defeat and stop our own prayers!

I want to challenge you this morning . . . if you are faced with unanswered, blocked, stopped, prayers and if silence is like a canopy over your head you may need to examine whether or not Isaiah 59 (you ought to go back and read the first 15 verses) doesn’t describe you. Perhaps, if we would simply repent, get our mind right, drop iniquity like it was hot, then at the same time we would turn the key and release our prayers and find our answers, direction, and provision!

5. The Wall of Injury
   There is a second wall that can block our prayers. This is another wall that we hold the key to. It is the wall of injury. Jesus was clear. Jesus left us no room for negotiation. He set it as a law of the kingdom that when you approach the altar injury can keep you from being heard! Listen again to Matthew 5. Don’t give yourself permission to dismiss its instructions. Don’t justify injury and block your prayers! Listen. . .

Matthew 5:21-24
“You’re familiar with the command to the ancients, ‘Do not murder.’ I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot!’ and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell ‘stupid!’ at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill. “This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.

When you come to the altar and remember. Isn’t it interesting that we typically remember at the moment we begin to approach God? Injury between you and someone else can stop your prayers! Injuries interrupt!

Some of us are suffering in silence because we refuse to do the hard and painful work of reconciliation. Earthly relationships can block your heavenly relationships! Our unity has more bearing on our ability to communicate with God than we realize. Jesus himself recognized the key ingredient of unity. He prayed that unity/love would invade our lives because He knew that without it we would come to the altar with no ability to hear or to be heard.

If we are not careful injury builds a wall around our prayer life and stops clear communion and communication. Who has you boxed in? You can’t work things out with God until you first work things out with them!

1. The Wall of Silence
   I think one of the biggest mistakes we make in our prayer life is that we mistake silence for lack of response. Silence is part of prayer! There are several reasons prayer is sometimes walled in silence.
2. God is silent at times because we pray contrary to His will.
   He is silent because our prayer doesn’t demand a response because He has already responded in His Word and we have failed to read that Word or heed His Word. When your kids ask you a question that they already know the answer to do you feel compelled to respond? Sometimes silence is simply God shouting, “I have already spoken!”
3. However, there is another reason for silence and that is interference.
   This is what Daniel experienced. In Daniel, 10 the Bible accounts for a prayer session in which Daniel prays and doesn’t receive any answer for 21 days. An angel appears to Daniel after the 3-week delay and informed him that he had been held up by enemy resistance. 

The enemy can and will interfere with our prayers. However, the great truth in that account is found in Daniel 10:12. Daniel is informed that from the moment he humbled himself and began to pray his prayers were heard!

That should encourage you! There are some of your prayers that you have prayed months and perhaps years ago that are still alive and still in the process! Don’t give up. Don’t mistake silence for a lack of response! It may be that your answer is simply delayed or detoured, but the answer will come! Hold on. Believe. Trust. Walk in the assurance that interference doesn’t equate to interception. Interception is a turnover. Interception means going the other way and defeat. Interference only equals delay!

Silence requires more discernment. Is silence a response? Or is silence a result of interference. What it isn’t is lack of interest!

1. Close
   Pray is often walled in, stopped and blocked. What we must determine, if our prayers are going to be effective, is am I fighting my own prayers by regarding iniquity or injury or is my prayer blocked by interference?

Silence never gives us license to take matters into our own hands unless that silence is a result of iniquity or injury. Then we must step up and tear down those walls so that we can press through to the communication that we so desperately desire and need!