Potted or Planted: Prayer Study

I had a Bible college professor that prayed before every test that we took, and he prayed the same prayer. God, I pray for all of those who studied, and I pray that the score that they make on this test is a perfect reflection of how much they studied for this test. And God, I pray for those who did not study study, and I pray they would fail. In Jesus name, Amen.

Prayer is a funny thing, isn't it? Today we're talking about the Gospel practice of prayer. And I was reminded again in preparing for this message that while prayer is one of the most common things that we talk about and do inside of the church world, somehow when I'm pressed to come up with a sermon about what prayer is, how it works, how we're supposed to do it, what it does, and all of the details around it, I've got a hundred thoughts and a thousand questions, and I know I'm not alone. So many of us feel the same way. Like we just haven't cracked the code on prayer, or we don't know how to pray or what to say, or we just don't pray because we can't explain it.

Or even those of us who would say that we have an active, healthy prayer life. We've still got all kinds of questions, like, if God already has chosen, what's going to happen? Why do I need to pray anyway? Or why does God seem to answer some prayers instantly, some he waits on, and some, maybe he never answers altogether. Why do some people seem better at prayer than I am?

Or why would we ever need to pray for an innocent child to be healed from a terminal cancer diagnosis? If God is all loving and all good and all powerful, why would he ever need me to pray about that? Shouldn't he just see that and step in and do something about it? And I'm sure you have these questions and lots of others that just remain unanswered. Or someone tries to give an answer and it comes out like God's timing is just perfect, or you just have to have faith, or everything happens for a reason, or God works in mysterious ways.

And these answers are, well, not really answers. It's like going to the doctor. You got a compound fracture in your leg and you're in agony. The bone is sticking out, you're bleeding, you're miserable. And the doctor says, well, everything happens for a reason.

God's good all the time. Am I right? And then he sends you home and you're like, wait. Dismissed. The whole point, right?

These kinds of answers, they kind of sound comforting, but they're not really helpful. They don't help us understand why prayer is so confusing or slow or complicated or hard. And as much as I'd love to give us a tidy definition of prayer, that's not what the Bible does. It's not that simple. It's not boxed up in a little tiny box.

At times like this, when Scripture doesn't give us a clean definition or a simple explanation for something, we have to be very careful about what we let shape our understanding. And instead of chasing after all the things that God hasn't revealed, we have to focus in on and trust that what he has revealed in his word is sufficient. So that's our aim today. Hold our questions with open hands and see what the Bible actually teaches about prayer. And before we do, let's take part in this mysterious act of prayer.

Let's pray together. God, we confess that we don't understand prayer like we wish we did. We confess that we don't pray as often or as much as we would like, or as with as much or with as much faith as we would like because we feel like we don't understand or it doesn't make sense, or because maybe we don't even actually believe that it will do anything.

But despite our shortcomings, God, would you meet us right here where we are? Would you call us out to be a people of prayer? And would you speak through me your truth today with accuracy from your word, Teach us in Jesus name. Amen. So I may have understated what the Bible does actually say about prayer.

It isn't that the Bible doesn't talk about prayer. It's just that it doesn't come in the form of a manual, like an exhaustive how to or a Prayer for Dummies guide. It just tells us stories that includes someone who was praying. It instructs us to pray and gives us actual prayers that people did pray. In fact, the Bible actually talks a lot about prayer, which is part of our problem.

What do I mean? Well, very often when I approach a topic like this and I want to come up with a clean definition, I just go look at the original Greek or the original Hebrew. I look for the meaning of that word. I look for all the places that it's used in the Bible, and then I give us a tidy definition and application of a thing. But in this case, between the Old Testament and the New Testament, There are over 20 different root words that are used for and to describe prayer.

And they're used 1100 times in the Bible to compare. When you do A word study on big words like love, faith, worship, justice, righteousness. None of them even have half that many words. In some ways, it isn't that the Bible says too little about prayer. It's that it says too much about prayer for us to narrow it down to an understandable or usable definition.

It's kind of like defining the word person. Like, a person has a body, but they're more than a body. A person has a mind, but they're not just their thoughts. A person has feelings and emotions, but they're not just whatever their feelings and emotions are right now. A person has a will and a personality and a backstory.

And then you start asking questions like, when does someone become a person? Or can you become not a person at some point? And you realize it's just hard for us to get our hands around this thing, to pick it up. Defining prayer is kind of like that. Prayer is, in fact, lots of things.

When we look at Scripture, we see that prayer is presenting our requests before God and our desires to Him. It's asking God questions, it's appealing to God. It's begging and pleading. It's praising and glorifying. It's intercessory, which means we pray on behalf of others.

It's supplication, which means we're asking on behalf of ourselves. It's crying out, it's groaning, it's thanksgiving, it's listening, it's worship. It's all of these things. And while this makes defining prayer a bit nebulous, one of the things that it does do is make some of the Scriptures about prayer a little more understandable. When we read Ephesians 6:18 at the end of the list of the armor of God, this is what Paul instructs.

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. Or when he says simply in First Thessalonians, pray without ceasing. Pray on all occasions with all kinds of prison requests and without ceasing. If prayer is all of those things and more that we just mentioned, well, that makes a whole lot more sense.

How we could be constantly in a state of prayer. Charles Spurgeon famously said, prayer is the lungs of the church.

Another time he said, prayer is the breath of faith. His point is, prayer is as fundamental, constant, and necessary for us as breathing. Prayer isn't just a moment that we close our eyes and fold our hands and recite some words. It is certainly that, but it's much more than that. Praying without ceasing is a constant awareness of, of God's presence in every moment, aligning our lives to his ways, thanking him for a sunrise, sharing our fears with him, abiding in him.

Okay, so prayer is lots of things. It's all of these things and more. But the question I think that most of us have, whether we realize it or not, the really hard question is, what does prayer do? What does prayer do do? Well, the simplest explanation that I can come up with is prayer brings things into alignment with the sovereign will of God.

Prayer brings things into alignment with the sovereign will of God. The best way I can think of to explain this is my kids asking for ice cream. Hang with me. I promise it'll make sense. Now, when it comes to my kids asking ice cream, asking for ice cream, I have what I'll call a small matrix of decision making rails.

And these rails help me to determine how I respond to their request. So first, I have a firm belief and spiritual conviction that ice cream is in fact, one of the greatest common gifts of grace that God has given all of mankind. Ice cream is, in fact, good. And if you disagree, you're wrong.

Now, not only is ice cream good, I want my kids to have it in their lives. However, there are decision making rails that I operate within on when and how much and if they they get ice cream. Like, there are appropriate and inappropriate times to eat ice cream, which is debatable, like, ice cream is not dinner. I also have a core belief that I should be a good steward of the resources and money that God has given me, even when it comes to ice cream. And finally, I believe that it is never a good idea to always give my kids everything they ask for.

So when my kids were little, I introduced them to ice cream for the first time. And immediately their little minds concluded, this is good. My dad wants me to have it, and I will eat as much of this as I can possibly get my hands on. But because of my rails, and because I know things that they don't, I limit how much and when they can have it. Well, fast forward a few years.

We're at the grocery store, they see ice cream. They say, dad, can we get ice cream? And my answer is no. Now wait, I thought that ice cream was good, and I thought you wanted your kids to have ice cream. But this particular day, a half gallon of ice cream is $25.

Now, this is theoretical, okay?

Which of course is a waste of money. But I also know right after we leave the grocery store we're going straight to a soccer game and if we buy $25 ice cream, it's going to sit in the car and melt. And so my answer is no. Now the kids might think in this moment that if they had just been more persuasive, if they had begged more, or maybe they would have gotten ice cream. Or they could think, maybe dad just doesn't want us to have ice cream anymore.

Or worse, dad withholds ice cream from us for his own pleasure or to control us. In reality, their request simply doesn't align with my unmoved decision making rails. Well, another day we're back at the grocery store and the same thing happens. This time they really work. The begging and pleading.

Dad, please, please, please can we get ice cream? We will wash your truck. We will do your laundry. We will love you forever. We will never do anything bad again.

Please, please, please, please, please. And that day I see that ice cream is buy one, get 10 free.

And I know as soon as we leave the grocery store, we're going straight home. So this day my answer is yes. Not only yes, you all get to pick your three favorite flavors each.

Their asking did cause them to get ice cream, but it was only because their request was in alignment with my decision making rails. I didn't plan to buy ice cream when I pulled in the parking lot, but they're asking lead to ice cream. Not because they wore me down, not because they pleaded and begged, but because this time what they wanted matched what I was already willing to give. Now imagine that night they asked to eat all three tubs in one sitting. Of course I say no.

But I promise a small bowl after dinner. Their request doesn't align with my decision making rails, but after dinner it will. With some boundaries that are tighter than what they requested. Another time. It's Sunday night.

It's after youth group. It's 9pm Each of my kids have a friend in the car. We are driving past Dairy Queen and they all start chanting, we. We want ice cream. We want ice cream.

We want ice cream. And my answer is no. Why? Because it's late. Everyone needs to get home.

Everyone needs to get to bed before school tomorrow. And it would cost me 50 bucks to buy all these punks ice cream. Their request does not align with the rails. But then there are times I seem to change all the rules altogether. This is not a hypothetical situation.

We have a rule in our house. On your birthday, you get to decide what we're having for dinner. You can choose anything you want. And when our youngest Wyatt was 5 or 6. He said, I want ice cream for dinner.

And my answer is yes. And we went and bought tubs of ice cream and all the toppings and we literally ate ice cream for dinner. But Jo, I thought ice cream's not for dinner.

The rails didn't bend to his request. I actually have a different set of decision making rails just for special moments.

And suddenly Wyatt's request that any other time does not align with my rails falls perfectly in line this time. One last example. We're driving home after a soccer game on a hot Saturday. The boys won with a hard fought victory. We just found out that all my kids got all A's in all of their classes on their report card.

And someone generously gave us a $50 Dairy Queen gift card. Now, as we pass by without them even asking, I pull into Dairy Queen and I tell everyone to pick their favorite flavor. It's a request they have given me many times before, and the answer is no. But this time, they didn't even need to ask. I gave them what I knew that they would want because it aligned with my decision making rails and it gave me rich pleasure to provide it for them.

Something special. Now, let's put this all into the context of prayer. God's sovereign will is like those decision making rails, but it includes a few things that make it really unfathomably more complex than whether or not my kids get ice cream. His decision making rails function across all time, across all of humanity, across all possible futures and outcomes. But it's even more complex than that.

God has predetermined that certain realities will come to pass no matter what intervention or opposition come. This is called God's decretive word will. The very best example of this from scripture is the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It was prophesied centuries beforehand and nothing could alter it. Herod could not kill him.

Satan could not tempt him. The crowds couldn't take him before his appointed time. Peter couldn't stop Jesus from getting arrested with a sword. Pilate couldn't set him free. And the guards that were outside of the tomb couldn't keep him from coming out.

Nothing can stop God's decretive will, not even prayer. In fact, Jesus himself prayed God, if there is any other way. But God didn't give him a way out. Now second, there's God's perfect will. This is what would be done if God did control everything.

Marriages would never end in divorce. No one would ever sin. Everyone would choose Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Paul talks about this. He gives us a picture of it in 1 Timothy 2.

He says, I urge then first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all all godliness and holiness. This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 2nd Peter 3. 9 says, the Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to to repentance.

Part of God's perfect will is that all people would come to the knowledge of truth and be saved. So we have God's decretive will. This is what will happen because God has ordained it. Nothing can stop it. We have God's perfect will.

What God desires to happen, though he does not force it. And then we have God's permissive will. This is what God allows to happen. Human freedom, human sin, human choices. This is why our world is broken.

All of these fit under that broad umbrella of God's sovereign will. It is his complete rule over everything that happens, whether he causes it, desires it, or permits it. Now my brain hurts already trying to imagine what it must be like for God to respond to our requests. With all of the sovereign rails that he has intersecting at different points on different levels across time in history, human hearts and entire nations. We can't even begin to fathom or comprehend how many layers of sovereignty from freedom, timing, consequence and purpose God is weaving together when he answers one prayer.

So does that mean our prayers are pointless? That nothing changes because God already decided things? Not at all. Remember what we said earlier that prayer does. Prayer brings things into alignment with the sovereign will.

And Scripture gives us a powerful story of watching this play out from beginning to end. In the book of First Samuel, we read about a guy named Elkanah. He has two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Quick note. God never endorses polygamy, by the way.

It's always described as destructive in Scripture. But in his permissive will, God allows it. And the tension that follows becomes part of the backdrop for this story. Watch what happens in 1st Samuel chapter 1. We get right into it, and immediately we are confronted with something that's really hard for us to swallow.

First Samuel 1, verse 6. Because the Lord had closed Hannah's womb, that's troublesome to me. Her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on Year after year, we don't know how long. Year after year is plenty of time.

Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. This clearly says that the Lord closed Hannah's womb. God caused this situation. And because of that, for years, Hannah has experienced grief and frustration and confusion and deep sorrow. Why would God cause this?

Why would he cause something that brings Hannah so much pain, that feels so unfair, unkind, unloving? And she likely wrestled with all the same questions that we have. Doesn't God love me? Why her but not me? Why is God letting this happen?

Is God even listening? Is my sin in the way of my prayers? Am I praying wrong?

But we're going to see something shift in here. Verse 10. In her deep anguish, Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. And she made a vow, saying, lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant, but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for I all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head. That last line is just this covenantal commitment to submit her son to God.

Did you see the shift her prayer moves from God, give me a son because I want a son. And it's not fair that she has a son and I don't have a son. To God, if you choose to give me a son, he is yours. All of his days, his entire life, everything, all of it belongs to you. And suddenly her request isn't just about her desire.

It's about God's purpose. Her heart comes into alignment with God's sovereign will. And when it does, God answers first. Samuel 1, verse 20. So in the course of time, Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son.

She named him Samuel. And once Samuel is weaned, Hannah does the unthinkable. She brings Samuel back to the house of God. She brings him to Eli, the priest. She said, you'll remember I1 praying desperately and weeping for a son.

And I made a vow to God. And today I'm fulfilling that vow. I am giving you my son. And his whole life will be committed to serving the house of the Lord. That's unthinkable, except Samuel would grow up to become one of the most significant men in the entire Bible.

And God didn't answer Hannah's prayer because she felt finally found the right words, or because she begged long enough, or because she somehow prayed correctly or twisted his arm or he eventually gave in. No, God wasn't don't miss this. God wasn't simply trying to give Hannah a son. God wasn't simply trying to answer her immediate prayer. God was preparing to raise up up Samuel.

A man she could not fathom would come. The prophet who would lead Israel, call the nation back to God, anoint Saul as the first king, anoint David as the next, reshape the entire future of God's people and be a shadow and reflection of the great Messiah who would come. She had no idea. With her earthly blinders on, Hannah could only see her longing for a child. That's all she could see.

But God was orchestrating something far bigger. He wasn't delaying because he wasn't listening or because he was disinterested. He was waiting for the exact moment when Hannah's desperation, humility, desires and requests finally aligned with the infinite rails of his sovereign will and redemptive plan. Think of everything that would have had to line up the exact moment of conception, the exact child with the exact personality born at the precise moment in Israel's history to a mother who would be willing to give him up so that he could be raised in just the way that God knew he would need to be raised. And God knew, one million steps later, that Josh Brown would be standing here in Cleves, Ohio, talking about this so that we could learn about what it means and what prayer does.

All of this fit perfectly. Don't miss this part. All of this fit perfectly within human free will. The timing of the life of Saul, the timing of the life of David, and a billion other moving parts that only God can see. God answers prayers when our desires, our timing, our requests in our lives come into alignment with with the sovereign will that he has.

Again, prayer brings things into alignment with God's sovereign will. In Hannah's situation, her prayers and the direct result of her time of waiting in agony with a closed womb eventually brought her into alignment, into a deep humility, dependence, and surrender that led her to be willing to dedicate her son to God. And that kind of surrendered heart would not have come any other way.

But prayer doesn't just change us. That's too easy. The Bible shows us that our prayers also affect the outside things too. Prayer moves circumstances, other people and spiritual realities onto these rails too, for reasons we can't understand. In God's permissive will, there are certain things that that God is willing to do but will not do unless his people pray.

He allows us to partner and participate in his sovereign will through prayer. Here are some examples from the Bible James 5:16. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. It does something. And then he gives us an example.

Elijah was a human being even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. If you don't know that story from the Old Testament, go look it up. It's an amazing story. Again, he prayed and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its crops.

The Bible also teaches that prayer actually shifts realities in not just the physical world, but in the spiritual realm too. We don't get a how to here either, no guide. But we do read about this stuff actually happening. Remember Paul's words when he says that we are in a spiritual war? We are supposed to armor up with all this armor.

And then the active part of fighting is prayer, because prayer fights spiritual battles. There's this crazy story in Daniel, chapter 10. Daniel is praying his guts out, asking God to come and help. And 21 days in, when it seems like maybe God is not listening or maybe Daniel's prayers are not working. One of the underling angels, apparently there are ranks of angels in heaven.

One of the underling angels makes it to him and he says, daniel, we heard your prayer from the beginning and I was trying to get to you, but the enemy set up a powerful demonic force in front of me that I could not overcome. And somehow, through all of Daniel's prayers, God not only dispatches this minor angel, but then he releases a more powerful angel, Michael. And Michael comes and he breaks through this spiritual barrier and makes it so this underling angel can come. And to Daniel, this is a crazy story, but it's in the Bible to show us there are spiritual realities that are getting moved by our prayers. That's incredible.

Another example is after the disciples come back from being sent out by Jesus to cast out demons and pray for people and heal them. And they come back and they go, jesus, we ran into this demon that we couldn't cast out. What's the deal with that, Jesus? And Jesus goes, oh yeah. That kind only comes out through prayer and fasting.

Prayer does things in the spiritual realm.

Jesus says in Matthew 6 that the Father already knows what we need before we ask. And still he tells us to ask why? Because asking is the mechanism by which real people, real difficulties and real situations are brought into alignment with the sovereign will of God. Asking initiates real movement confronts real opposition and advances God's purposes against real spiritual enemies and resistance. Now, next week, we'll spend more time talking about how we should pray and practicing that.

But I do want to look at the example prayer that Jesus gave us because it shows us how to pray in a way that brings things into alignment with God's sovereign will. The disciples are with Jesus. Jesus prays and one of them says, hey, can you teach us to pray? It makes me feel better that guys that hung out with him for three years still didn't know how to pray. This makes me feel better when I have questions about it, right?

But first he says, yeah, I'll do that. First, don't pray like the hypocrites. They pray out loud just to get attention. And don't keep on babbling. Don't keep on babbling thinking that God will be impressed with your many words.

I imagine how ridiculous it is for my kids to ask for ice cream like babbling hypocrites. They still try. It's useless. But then he tells them how to pray. Matthew 6, starting in verse 9.

This then is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Other versions will say, sins are trespasses there and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Do you see how Jesus praying brings things into alignment with the sovereign will of the Father? Jesus says, if you want to know how to pray, it's all about God's kingdom. It's all about God's will coming, being done here and now. Jesus understands that prayer, just like every other standard and truth and guideline and command and limitation, and that God gives to us is all about things coming into perfect alignment with God's sovereign will. Church.

If prayer really is the mechanism by which God aligns real things, real people, real moments, real situations with his sovereign will. If prayer is the breath of faith, if prayer is the way the kingdom breaks into the chaos of our world, then the most important thing we can learn to do is not how to get better at praying, but how to form our prayers so that they are calling for things to come into alignment with the sovereign will of God. And Jesus doesn't leave us guessing. He doesn't give us a formula to master. He gives us a pattern to surrender to.

A way of praying that starts with God's name being honored. You are the mighty God of the universe. Just that moment is enough to say, I am not you. A way of praying that starts with God's name being honored. God's kingdom coming, God's will being done.

And this is all before it ever gets to my needs and my sins and my desires and my temptations and my deliverance. It's Jesus way of saying prayer. Isn't you trying to bend God toward your will? Prayer is letting God bend everything else to his. And church, if this kind of praying brings things into alignment with the will of God, then there is no better way for us to respond today than just speaking the very words Jesus gave us.

Words the church has had and been shaped by for 2000 years. Words that have steadied believers in suffering and in questioning, empowered them in mission, anchored them when nothing else made sense. Words that caused things to be brought into alignment with the perfect sovereign will of the Creator of the universe.

And everything in scripture from the moment sin enters the world, everything in scripture, the whole purpose of Jesus coming is to now empower us as ambassadors of reconciliation to bring things back into alignment with the sovereign will of God, to bring them back to shalom. It's all one story. Church prayer's on the way to oneness with the Father, getting everything back to the way that he intended it to be. It's not about you. It's about the sovereign will of God.

And he has given us this glorious, powerful mechanism of asking. And it should change the way that we pray. It should change the way that we feel when God doesn't do what we asked him to do. Not just because we gave up, because we know he is sovereign and good. So let's pray differently.

Church.