Community groups on social media can be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, you can find yourself in an echo chamber and then must deal with all the bad things that come with that. On the other hand, they can be wonderful resources in life. For example, I’m a member of a handful of groups I try to check into weekly for encouragement, humor, and the like. One is a group for Pastors that brings a lot of encouragement. One is for Tennessee Volunteer Football, and that one can go a lot of different ways depending on where we are in the season. Another one is for Classic Southern Gospel Album Art that is just for pure entertainment. However, my favorite is one called “What is this thing”. It’s a group where people post all sorts of things, just looking for an answer to the question, “What is this thing?” You get to learn all about structural features of older buildings, odd-shaped things that are carried on the back of 18-wheelers, and my favorite — you get to learn about the old tools you find in your grandpa’s toolbox. For example, I recently learned about glazing irons. They are small, hammer-like tools used for molding and polishing leather. They were popular among cobblers in England between 1920 and 1940. It’s amazing that all the tools that I’ve never seen before are specifically for certain jobs and do them very well. I'm sure if you thought about it, you have many of those types of tools at your job as well — very specific and effective. Since we have been in a series on what is required of us to be a follower of Jesus, I was thinking about what a metaphorical toolbox would look like for a follower of Jesus. We’ve seen some of the things that would be found in that toolbox during this sermon series. We would see things like self-denial, focus on the Master, and focus on the Master’s mission. We would see how to be recharged as we follow Jesus because that is a very difficult task, and we would see that faith is a major component in how the followers of Jesus labor for the Lord. However, there is still one tool that we haven’t talked about that is the most powerful, the most needed, and most useful tool that a follower of Jesus has in their toolbox. That tool is prayer.
Last week we looked at the failure of the disciples while Jesus was away and saw what is required to labor for our Lord. Our text ended last week, but the account did not. There was still little left to the story as it was recorded in Mark.
Mark 9:28-29
Afterward, when Jesus was alone in the house with his disciples, they asked him, “Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?” Jesus replied, “This kind can be cast out only by prayer.”
The disciples were trying to learn from their failures and asked Jesus why they had failed. Jesus' answer was simple: it was because you didn’t pray. This answer should pique our interest because if you remember, Jesus had called out their lack of faith in the passage we looked at last week. So why was their faith called out before, but now it's lack of prayer that is being addressed? It’s because both things go hand in hand. Faith fuels the follower, but prayer is what fuels faith. Prayer is one of the most important disciplines a disciple carries out but is probably the most neglected as well. Prayer is simply communication with God. We can do so through the blood of Jesus Christ, and we know that God delights in the prayers of His children (Proverbs 15:8). Prayer is so important that not only did the lack of it cause the disciples to fail, but when the disciples could have asked Jesus to teach them anything, they asked to be taught how to pray. There is no doubt prayer is more important than we imagine in the life of a believer, so this morning let’s get this most important of tools out of the toolbox, dust it off, understand how it is supposed to be used, and put it back to work in our lives as we follow Jesus.
A Disciple's Prayer Life reveals what they actually believe about God.
Just as we mentioned last week, when Jesus answered the disciples' question, He was pointing to the fact that they had removed God from the equation when trying to carry out His mission for them. This entire encounter began to give us a glimpse of the faith of the disciples and what they really thought about Jesus. They thought they had the power instead of God using His power through them. Their lack of prayer revealed a lot about these men at this point, and our prayer lives reveal a lot about us as well. Prayer shows us where our faith truly lies. The disciples had seen what they once did earlier in Jesus’ ministry. They had been tasked with casting out demons to show the authority of Jesus, and Jesus had worked through them to bring Himself glory. However, these disciples were no longer trusting in Jesus to use them. They had already done this, so now their faith was in their own abilities. When we pray, we show our faith is outside of ourselves and in God alone. Another thing that the prayer life of a believer will show is almost synonymous but different enough. I believe we need to point out that prayer shows us whose strength we are really relying upon. God has given each of us unique and wonderful gifts, skills, and abilities, but those skills are never used to their fullest potential outside of the power of God. That’s the reason we must trust God with those gifts and not do things that we are comfortable with or where we operate in our own power. Remember last week we said service to God only starts where your natural abilities end. That doesn’t mean that God will not use those gifts, but when we trust Him with them, He will do abundantly more than we ever could imagine. Prayer is how we bring those gifts to Him in an act of worship and pray that He uses them for His glory. Our prayer life, or lack thereof, also reveals our humility before the authority of God. Are we seeking His will instead of our own? We see this in the father's action when asking Jesus to heal his son. He was communicating with Jesus, so this was in fact prayer. We see this prayer was rooted in the faith that the father had in Jesus, even though it was still mixed with some unbelief. When confronted with that disbelief, he cried out, “I do believe!” and what He was saying was Lord, I do not have the answers, and while I might have a plan myself, I trust yours entirely. He was submitting to the will of Jesus. We see another famous prayer in the Bible like this as well, and it comes from Jesus Himself. While Jesus was praying in the garden a few hours before His crucifixion and death, we saw Him pray, “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” When we pray, this is what we are doing: we are submitting to God’s will, His power, His authority, and His plan. While this is difficult in and of itself because of our sinful pride, there is another part of God’s plan we are submitting to when we go to Him in prayer as He intends, and that is in His timing. The possessed boy’s father experienced this as well, because after he declared His faith in Jesus, Jesus didn’t immediately heal the boy. Jesus watched what the demon was doing and asked the father some questions. After He waited for the answer, He even confronted the father's unbelief before He acted. When we speak to God, we too are having to trust God with the timing of our prayers. God can answer our prayers with a yes, with a no, or with the most difficult of all answers — wait. When this happens, it’s sometimes because we aren’t ready for His answer yet, and we still are being molded into the follower who is ready for the answer. Refusal to pray in the life of a follower of Jesus is outright rebellion against God since Jesus commands us specifically to pray for our enemies in Matthew 5:44. When we are disobedient to God’s command, we are practicing sin. Sin will hinder our relationship with the Lord (Psalms 66:18), and if we are not actively dealing with sin through repentance, confession, and obedience, then it reflects upon how we value our relationship with Jesus and shows what we truly think about God. You will always fight for the things that matter most to you. When it comes to your relationship with Jesus, your actions will speak louder than your words. People are watching. What does your prayer life say about the One who gave His life for you?
Prayer is how we participate in God’s Will.
The reason we pray first and foremost as a follower of Jesus is that we see it modeled for us by Jesus, and He is the One we follow. We see Jesus praying throughout the Gospels. He prayed on the mountains (Luke 9), He prayed early in the mornings (Mark 1:35), and He prayed before major events (Luke 6:12-13). Other than Jesus’ example, most of us don’t really understand why we should pray. Sure, it’s OK to ask God for things, but if we think that’s all it’s for, we can fall into a trap where prayer is a glorified gold rush (A.W. Tozer). Prayer is much more than asking God for things. It's how we worship God through adoration. It’s how we confess our sins before Him. It's how we bring our offerings of thanksgiving because of the goodness we have experienced in our lives. Prayer is not about persuasion. It is about participation. Let me try to explain what I mean by starting with Jesus in Matthew 6:8. It is here that Jesus tells us that God knows our needs before we even ask, but as this passage continues, Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray and tells them they need to ask for their daily bread. We also see throughout Scripture that God is sovereign and unchanging. Therefore, we know our prayers are not to persuade or move Him in any way; instead, prayer is the method God chooses to accomplish His will in us and through us. Have you ever noticed how many promises in Scripture are bound to prayer? In the Old Testament, a promise is given in 2 Chronicles 7:14 that if God’s people humble themselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from their sin, He will hear them, forgive their sins, and heal their land. Psalm 50:15 tells us to call upon God when we are in trouble, and He will rescue us, and we will give Him glory. In the New Testament, we see it often as well. Philippians 4:6-7 tells us to pray with thanksgiving, and the peace of God will guide our hearts and our minds. John 16:24 tells us that we must pray to have abundant joy. James 1:5 tells us to pray for God’s wisdom, and it’s implied to be able to know His will. Luke 10:2 tells us to pray to the Lord of the harvest so that He sends more workers into the field. Matthew 26:41 tells us to pray to fight temptation. Ephesians 6:18-19 tells us that we are to pray for believers everywhere for strength and boldness as they carry out the Master’s mission. These are just a handful of examples of the literal dozens upon dozens of these examples in Scripture. All of them show that we must pray to participate in God’s will. Prayer is powerful because it’s the obedience to the call to prayer that God uses to accomplish His will in us and through us. God and God alone is the source of the power we need. But even though prayer does not change or move God, it does change someone, and that someone needs a lot of changing. Prayer changes the follower.
Prayer changes things.
If you begin to read the Book of Acts, there is one thing that becomes very apparent. The disciples of the Gospels are very different from the disciples in Acts. They go from men who do not pray and fail in Jesus’ mission for them and men who fail to pray in the garden and run away when persecution comes, to men who pray about everything. As a result, they live bold lives, empowered by the Holy Spirit, turning the world upside down for Jesus. But how? Because as they prayed to the Father in the name of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, God was using those prayers to mold their will to His. Prayers of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication bring us into a more intimate relationship with God, and it’s in those moments our relationship is deepened. Prayer changes our desires when we pray correctly. In Jesus’ prayer to teach His disciples, He tells them to pray that God’s will be done. 1 John 5:14-15 tells us that we will receive what we ask for when it is asked in God’s will. The more we pray that not our will, but God's will be done in all our situations, our faith is shown, it is strengthened, and our will begins to be molded into His. Prayer also changes our priorities. As we pray and we worship through adoration to God. We delight in God, and we are told in Psalm 37:4 to “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” When we seek after God, God promises to give us all of Himself that we want. The more we pray, the closer we grow to God. The more our heart delights in the Lord — the more the Lord answers. Prayers also reshape our fears. As David was fleeing King Saul, who was trying to take his life, he wrote Psalm 34:4: “I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.” David knew that prayer was the way to be delivered from fear, so he prayed. I’m sure he prayed fervently, and those fervent prayers shaped him to trust God increasingly and removed those fears from his life as he lived out God's will for His life. Again, this just scratches the surface of how prayer changes us. It also changes others and is a way we are called to minister to others. Colossians 4:3 tells us prayer opens the door for others to share the Word. James 5:16 tells us to pray for one another so that we may be healed. Acts 12:5 shows us that the church prayed and Paul was delivered from prison. Philippians 1:9-10, Paul prays for their love and discernment. Again, this list goes on and on as well. However, the point remains: we must pray, pray to change ourselves and others as well. How long and how often should we pray? Well, Paul tells us to pray without ceasing, and James tells us to pray fervently, but shouldn’t once be enough? No, and the reason is that we might not be ready for God’s answer. We need more intimate and relational time with the Lord to begin to be made more into the image of Jesus. Therefore, we are commanded to pray and pray some more.
When you look at the entirety of Scripture, there is no doubt that prayer is a necessary, powerful, and mysterious thing. In the life of a follower of Jesus, there can be no substitute, but we always make excuses. The disciples did the same as well. They couldn’t even wait and pray with Jesus for an hour. That seems a little extreme to us, but it’s what is required. You look at history, and you see that the most powerful churches that God used mightily were churches that were praying churches. When is the last time people showed up just to pray for not even hours but for 10 minutes? Those people are few and far between, but if we are going to follow Jesus and be a people who are connected to the power that only comes through God alone, we are going to have to be a praying people. We should pour our hearts out to God in worship as we adore God. We should confess as we pray for forgiveness from the sins that seem to always reign in our lives. Be thankful for all God has blessed us with, and make our request known before God, asking Him to show us His will and that His will be done above all. There is power in prayer not because of the way we pray or who we are, but because of the One we pray to.
