Luke 11:5-13; Luke 18:1-8; Luke 18:9-14
Sunday Morning, December 22, 2002

What Do You Expect From Prayer? 

INTRODUCTION:
In this sequence of Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ teachings on prayer appropriately follows what He has taught about loving our neighbor (10:25-37) and the importance of listening (10:38-42). God wants us to be prayerful people . . . for the gifts of God are for the people who ask, seek, and knock persistently. Prayer becomes the disciple’s access to the power of God’s spirit. 

DIGGING DEEPER:

III. Learning to pray is a process. Prayer was an important part of Jesus’ own life and He taught and encouraged His disciples to pray and inspired them by His own example.

Step One: For us to value communion with God, we must be convinced that God is
interested in the personal affairs of our life (Psa. 34:15-17; Prov. 15:8, 29; Matt. 7:7-11; John 9:31; 14:13,14; 15:7, 16; Eph. 3:20). 

Step Two: We must be convinced of our need, our utter dependence, on God in all the affairs of our life. How does this attitude differ from that demonstrated by the Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14? It’s no wonder that once again following this parable Jesus indicates that unless we accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, we won’t get in (Luke 18:15-17). 

To arrive at this conviction, we must understand that our own strength has definite limits. I constantly fight a tendency to believe that I can lift myself up through the “bootstrap method” - - we are intoxicated with the humanistic doctrine of self-sufficiency which has left us prone to depend upon the arm of the flesh instead of the power of God’s Spirit.

While God designed prayer for our use (Luke 11:1-13), we must individually determine the value of prayer and discipline ourselves to live under God’s sovereign will for our lives . . . knowing that he will work (even the impossible) and create the events that are in our best interest.

Step Three: We must come to a recognition that GOD IS ABLE (Psa. 118; Eph. 3:20, 21; 2 Tim. 1:12). 

While we all know this is true, we must be careful not to over-simply the magnitude of this belief. This reality demands a very deep theological understanding about the nature of God’s sovereignty over all! 

With this perspective, consider the instruction in James 5:13-18.

What a motive for praying - - that the same God who has power over creation is in control of your future (Matt. 6:7-8; Eph. 1:20-23; Col. 1:16-18). 

IV. At this point, I want to raise some related issues for you to commit to further private study. 
A. If God is sovereign and is working out all things according to His plan, what possible effect could my prayer life have on God’s will? On the other hand, if God is not sovereign, what use is there in praying, since God cannot or will not answer prayer? 
So here we have two facts, both of which are true and yet both seem to contradict each other:
i. God is sovereign. All things are worked out according to His predetermined plan.
ii. Man is responsible before God for his choice and is instructed through God’s Word to pray about everything. 
How can man be free to choose if God is in total control of all events (Phil. 2:12, 13)?
In some inexplicable way God has seen fit to incorporate human freedom and responsibility into His all-inclusive plan. Even though He is in sovereign control of the details, He never forces any man to do anything against his will (Psa. 139). 
B. In God’s perspective, everything is always in the “now” - - He is outside of time.

Once we can comprehend the fact that God does not move along a time line as we do with events that are in the past, present, and future, we will better able to understand how He can arrange events to accomplish His will. God is able to look at all events (past, present, and future) that have taken place on earth in the lives of billions of people in one moment. 

This implies my life prayers are already before the throne of God. Consider this thought from C.S. Lewis book Miracle:

When we are praying about the result, say, of a battle or a medical consultation the thought will often cross our minds that (if only we knew it) the event is already decided one way or the other. I believe this to be no good reason for ceasing our prayers. The event certainly has been decided - - in a sense it was decided “before all world.” But one of the things taken into account in deciding it, and therefore one of the things that really cause it to happen, may be this very prayer that we are now offering. Thus, shocking as it may sound, I conclude that we can at noon become part cause of an event occurring at ten o’clock. 

The imagination will, no doubt, try to play all sorts of tricks on us at this point. It will ask, “then if I stop praying can God go back and alter what has already happened?” No. The event has already happened and one of its causes is your present prayer (or absence of prayer). Thus something does really depend on my choice. My free act contributes to the cosmic shape. 

When this concept begins to dawn on you, the implications are staggering. Think about it. Suppose you pray about an event that is about to transpire in the future. You know that in a sense the outcome of that event has already been determined, but what is amazing is the fact that God can allow your prayer to enter into the event and He can arrange the event to fit the request of your prayer. We have a voice in the operation, control, and direction of the created order. 

It is not the time sequence of prayers that matter . . . because God eternally (“before the foundations of the world”) knew our prayers. 

All this is beyond logic. We cannot rationally define and “box up God.” 

C. I used to look at prayer as having a beginning and an ending. I now view prayer as a lifestyle - - this is the only way we can “pray without ceasing” (1 Thes. 5:17; Luke 18:1-8). 

CONCLUSION:
With these thoughts in mind, does this change your perspective on the meaning of the Lord’s instruction to “pray in faith?”