Philippians 4:6-7

James 5:13-16

Matthew 7:7-11

What Should We Pray?

Today, we continue with our series of sermons on prayer. And my goal during this series is to teach you some things about prayer and to help you deepen your own prayer life. The first week, we asked the question, “Why Should We Pray?” And we came to understand that prayer is not, first and foremost, about making requests of God, even though that’s how many of us use prayer. But instead, the primary purpose of prayer is fellowship and conversation with God that cultivates a relationship with God.

I think Tennyson had it right when he described prayer in this way: “Prayer is like opening a door between the great ocean and our little channels, when the sea gathers itself together and flows in at full tide.” Somehow that captures what happens when we pray. When we pray, we open the doors of our lives so that God’s Spirit can flow in. And just as the ocean, at hide tide, flows into the openings and canals, so God’s Spirit flows into our hearts … if we pray.

But if we don’t pray and if we never spend time in prayer, then we’re keeping God’s Spirit at bay in our lives and our spiritual lives will never be what they could be. We are as Paul says, “You have the form of godliness, but you deny the power of it.” So, we pray in order to open the doors and the portals of our lives to God’s Spirit.

Last week we asked the question, “How Should we pray?” And for that, we turned to Jesus and how he answered that question for his disciples. And the answer he gave them was the Lord’s Prayer. We learned that the Lord’s Prayer was not to be prayed as empty words that we have memorized, but rather as a pattern for prayer. Every phrase is rich in meaning and we are to use it as a model for our own prayers.

Today we ask the question: “What Should we Pray?” And what we’re going to be asking here is really 3 different questions. First of all, “Is it okay to pray for myself?” Is it okay to talk to God about the things I am concerned about? Secondly, “How should I pray for myself and other people?” And thirdly, “Does God really answer prayer?”

But before we jump into answering those questions, I want to share with you a couple of very practical models or patterns for prayer. The first one is an acronym called “ACTS”. Some of you may have heard of this. This is a model that I often use this when I pray. I think of the word ACTS and it helps me remember what I should include in my prayers.

“A” stands for “Adoration”

“C” stands for “Confession”

“T” stands for “Thanksgiving”

“S” stands for “Supplication”

In this model, you begin your prayer with “Adoration” … by praising God and adoring God. “Lord, I praise your holy name!” You may even begin by singing a song of praise to God.

And then, we move into “Confession”, where we recognize our need for God’s grace and forgiveness.

And then to “Thanksgiving”, where we count our blessings one by one.

And that puts us in the proper attitude to finally come to “Supplication.” Supplication comes from the word, “supply”. This is the part of the prayer where we ask God to supply all of our needs … “our daily bread”. The Bible says, “My God shall supply all of your needs according to his riches and glory.” So, we come and we ask God to meet our needs and the needs of those around us.

Now, that’s a simple patter for prayer that we can all use. If you will just remember ACTS you’ll remember to include these important elements in your prayers. Or you can just use the Lord’s Prayer as we taught last week.

But, when we get to the part of “supplication” in our prayers – how do we pray for ourselves and other people? Well, there’s a simple pattern for this that was originally designed by a nurse. This woman worked in a hospital with chronically ill people. And as she worked with them, she found that there were those who had a hard time praying. Many didn’t know how to pray, but now, for the first time in their lives they desperately wanted to pray.

There was one man in particular who was seriously ill and he wanted to pray, so she taught him the Lord’s Prayer. And she said, “When it comes to the part, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ let me teach me you a helpful guide.” She took his hand in her hand and she said, “When you pray, put your hands together and look at your fingers.”

When you hold your hands like this, “the thumb” is closest to your heart. So, when you begin to pray for your daily bread, start out by praying for those who are nearest and dearest to you. These would be those whom God has committed to your care … your children, your spouse, parents, and close friends … all those who are nearest and dearest to you.

Now next, you have your “forefinger” or “pointer finger”. When you get to this finger remember those who are around you everyday … not your immediate family or friends, but the people you go to school with; the people you work with; your neighbors; the person next to you in the hospital; every nurse and doctor who walks in the door. Those who are around you.

Then, if you look at your hand, you will notice that “your middle finger” is taller than all of the rest. She said, “When you get to this finger, pray for all those who are

above you.” That may begin with the President, Congress, those we’ve elected as officials, your boss/employer, tour teacher at school, your parents. Pray for your church leaders and pastors … those who above or in authority over you.

Next is the “Ring Finger”. She said, “I play the piano and I can tell you that this is my weakest finger. And so, when I get to that finger I pray for those who are weak … those who are poor and in desperate need.”

And then, if you notice, there’s only one finger left … “the pinkie finger” which is the smallest of all. And she said, “This stands for you.” When you get to this finger, it’s time to pray for yourself and your own needs. Only after you’ve prayed for the needs of others, do you lift up your own needs to God.

Now, I’ve found these models to be very helpful ways of guiding my prayers, so, I offer them to you as a help. There are many other patterns for prayer that are helpful. There are “breath prayers” that help us to focus when we pray. I pray a lot of “Zinger Prayers” throughout the day. Often, I don’t have time to go through the ACTS prayer or pray through my fingers. I’ll see someone in need or a name will come across my mind, and I just stop right there and offer that person up in my prayers.

Or sometimes I will pray the scriptures. I wish we had time to do a whole sermon on this. Because in the Early Church, even Jesus, took the Psalms and made them into his own prayers. We can take the Psalms or other Scriptures and you can pray them verse by verse, letting each verse your own form of prayer. This is a very powerful form of prayer.

And there are hosts of other ways to pray. I love the story about the three pastors who were debating the best position to pray in. One of them said, “The most powerful position for prayer is to have your hands raised up to the heavens when you pray. That’s how the prophets prayed.”

The next pastor said, “No, the best posture for prayer is on your knees. Humbling yourself before God on your knees is the best way to pray.”

And the third pastor said, “You guys don’t know what you’re talking about. The most powerful position for prayer is what the Old Testament Hebrews did. They laid out on the floor … they prostrated themselves out before God. That’s the most powerful posture for prayer.”

But this man, standing nearby working on the phone system, was listening to this whole debate, and he said, “None of you guys know what you’re talking about. Let me tell you, the most powerful prayer I ever prayed was dangling upside down from a telephone pole at 40 feet.” You can have some serious prayer in situations like that. Well, whatever works for you. There are a lot of different ways to pray. The important thing is that you pray!

But many of us struggle with what to say when we pray. So, that’s what I want to talk about today. Some have said, “I don’t have a problem with the adoration, or the confession, or thanksgiving part of prayer, but I have a hard time praying for myself or for other people.”

Leslie Wetherhead was one who said this. He was one of the greatest Methodist pastors in the British Isles earlier this century. He wrote a number of books with great insights. But one place that I strongly disagree with him is on the subject of prayer. Because he said, “I never pray for myself, because God has more important things to worry about than me. God already knows my needs before I speak. So, there’s no need to approach God in prayer with my concerns”

I’ve heard others echo this … thinking that to pray for ourselves is selfish, because there are always other, greater needs to pray for than mine. Well, when we pray there will always be someone who has more serious concerns than yours.

But, here’s how I look at it. When I encounter persons who are facing dire circumstances … someone just found out that they have cancer, or a spouse has just left, or a loved one has just died. Those are serious circumstances. But when I get home from after having prayed for those circumstances and one of my children comes to me upset about something that is bothering them. I don’t look at them and say, “You know, this just really isn’t important. I mean, I was with people today who had real concerns.”

I don’t say that to my children. Do you know why? Because I love them. And their little concerns are serious to them. And because they are serious to them and because I love them, they are serious to me

And I think that is how God looks at us. When God hears our prayers, God isn’t comparing them against the seriousness of others. God is looking at us and saying, “I want to hear your concerns, because you’re one of my children and I love you.”

The scriptures make this clear, I think. In I Peter 5:7 it says, “Cast all your cares upon Him, because He cares for you.” In Philippians 4:6-7, Paul says when we

have anxieties and concerns, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” And listen to what happens when we do this. “The peace of God, which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

In everything we face that we’re anxious about … turn it over to God, because God cares about us.

Now, when we pray for others, we call that “Intercessory Prayer” … where we are interceding on behalf of others. And there are some key points in the New Testament about how we should pray when we pray for ourselves and others.

The first characteristic is “Faith”. Do you pray with faith? In the movie “Leap of Faith”, Steve Martin poses as a faith healer, but he’s really a con-artist and the miracles are all rigged. Every once in a while, though, someone with a genuine need slips through and asks to be prayed for. He prays for them, but they’re not healed. And when this happens, he says, “You weren’t healed because you didn’t have enough faith. If you just had enough faith, you would be healed. It’s not my fault … it’s you’re fault.”

Well you know what? That’s baloney. That’s not how God works. Jesus said, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘be removed and cast into the sea,’ and it will be done for you.” Now, he’s not talking about geographic mountains, he’s talking about the mountains in our own lives that we face. But you know, mustard seeds are very, very small seeds. So, when you pray earnestly, don’t let someone tell you that you just didn’t have enough faith and that’s why it didn’t come to pass.

In a couple of weeks we are going to talk about unanswered prayer and why God sometimes chooses not to answer our prayers. But, faith is an important component to praying. We have to have faith when we pray. We have to believe that God is strong enough … that God is powerful enough and loves us enough to be concerned about our prayers.

Second, we’re told to be “persistent” when we pray. Now, this is hard for most of us, because we tend to have short attention spans. If things don’t happen quickly and on our time schedule, then we just give up. Many of us do this in our prayer life. We pray for something once or twice and when it doesn’t happen, we just stop praying about it.

But that’s not what Jesus teaches. In the parable about the “persistent widow” in Luke 18, there was a widow who was seeking justice. But there was an unjust judge who was unwilling to hear her case. Yet this woman would not take no for an answer. She kept going back, every day, saying, “You have got to hear my case…”

And finally, the unjust judge said, “I’m so sick of this woman that I’m going to hear her case just to get her out of my hair.” And he does … he gives her justice. Jesus says, “God is not like that unjust judge. God is a just judge,” but there are times you must pray with persistence.

You know, there are some of you in this room that I pray for almost every single day. There are those here who are facing really serious health concerns or difficult times and there have been some whom I’ve been praying for months. And at times I feel like I’m that widow. There are times I say to God, “God, I know you must be sick of me saying this to me, but until you lead me to pray something differently, I’m going to keep praying about this until you do something.”

Now, I don’t know how God looks at that, but from this parable in Luke 18, I sense that God says, “That’s okay.” And I understand that there may come a day when God says, “Ricky, I’m choosing not to do what you’re asking for here. I’m choosing to do something else that you don’t yet understand.” But until God tells me that, I will continue to pray and pray.

John Calvin, the great reformer, said it this way, “We must repeat the same supplications, not twice or three times only, but as often as we have need … a hundred or even a thousand times. We must never be weary in waiting for God’s help.”

Third, we are told to pray “specifically.” Now, many of us don’t pray this way. We tell those who are sick, “I’m going to pray for you.” We go to our prayer time and we say, “God, please bless Johnny.” Well, “God bless Johnny” is a good prayer, but it is not necessarily the prayer that’s going to get something done. When you pray, if you’re serious about praying for yourself or someone else who is in need, pray “specifically”. God may not chose to answer the prayer as we have prayed it, but at least God is clear about what we’re expecting and wanting to have happen.

When I pray for people who are sick, I always try to be as specific as possible. Each week when I pray over the prayer cards that have been submitted on Sundays, I try to be as specific as I can when I pray. When I have prayer with someone in the hospital who is sick, I don’t say, “God, please bless so-and-so.” As I pray for someone in the hospital I say, “God, at this very moment, may this person feel your presence holding them. Lord, the doctor, who is working on John … I ask you to please guide that doctor. Help them to know things they might not otherwise know. Help them to see things they might not otherwise see. Use their healing hands. Use their ideas and work through their medications. Work through the nurses and the therapists, and guide their every decision. God, please, I pray that you would use all of these means to bring healing to this person.”

Now that’s a very specific prayer. And you know what I find, is that most of those prayers get answered. Somewhere along the way, God works in that when we pray specifically.

And then finally this … we are to pray with “others”. In Matthew 18:19-20,

Jesus says this, “I tell you that if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” That means that when we pray, it is good to enlist the help of other people.

That’s why we have those prayer request cards and the various opportunities for people to gather together for prayer during the week, so that you won’t be the only person praying. There is power and strength when people pray together.

It’s an awesome thing that happens here every Sunday evening as people gather to pray over the prayer cards and at other times throughout the week, as people pray for each other. To know that there are people here at this church who are fighting on your behalf. When they pray, they are praying on your behalf and pleading with God, calling upon God, praying for you. And this is something that all of us can and should do for each other.

Okay, finally I want to address the question, “How does God answer our prayers?” God does this in a variety of ways.

First of all, God answers our prayers by “changing our hearts” when we pray. The first thing that happens when we pray, is that we open ourselves up to God’s Holy Spirit to be at work in us. So, praying makes us more loving and caring. When we pray, “God make me more patient.” (By the way, that is a dangerous thing to pray.) But you pray that day after day after day, the dominant desire in your heart begins to change. God changes us from the inside out, by virtue of our prayers.

Secondly, “God lifts our burdens” as we turn things over to God. There are times when I pray and I’ll hold my hands out like this. And I’ll say, “God, this thing is just weighing my heart down and I can’t carry it anymore. So, I’m going to lift it up to right now.” And I visualize that thing in my hands, and I say, “God please, take this from me?” And then, I end my prayer with my hands turned over like this (palms down). You know, when you turn your hands over like this, you can’t hold on to things any more.

So, when we pray, one of the things we do, is we turn whatever it is over to God and let go of it, which brings us God’s peace.

And finally, God does “directly answer our prayers”. God answers our prayers in a host of ways, sometimes in ways that we least expect it. God answers our prayers by sending people along to take care of the concerns that we have. God answers our prayers by using our body’s natural healing processes. God answers our prayers by using doctors and nurses and medications. God answers our prayers sometimes in quite miraculous ways, directly by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. But I can tell you, God does hear and God does answer our prayers.

Over my 25 years of years as a pastor, I have prayed for literally thousands of people. And I want to be honest about my experience with intercessory prayer. Out of the thousands of people that I’ve been a part of praying for, there have been about 20 of what I would call grand slam, out of the park miracles. Instances where someone was critically ill and in the midst of prayer there was an instantaneous miracle of recovery. Or a situation that was absolutely hopeless and bleak, and suddenly there was hope again. Only 20. Now, that’s a very small number that I have seen answered directly in that way. And some of you may be thinking that you need to get a new pastor with better results in prayer, but I am being honest.

I can tell you that there was another 20 during that time, where I pleaded with God. I got on my knees before God and the thing that I pleaded for never happened. Even though I believed, and I trusted, and I tried to do everything right, it still didn’t work. We’re going to talk about that week after next, when we talk about “Why God says No.” It has happened in my life, just like it’s happened in yours. But for the vast majority of the prayers that I have prayed and the people for whom I’ve prayed for, there have been answers to those prayers. Very concrete answers. Not always instantly, like I’d hoped, but they’ve been answered.

Some of them were people who called me with the news that they had cancer and they were terribly frightened. So, we prayed and we prayed, and now they’re going about life as usual. A few are sitting here in this room, cancer free. After having gone through all of the medical procedures and God working through that, they’re now whole.

And there are little children that I have prayed for who were in the hospital. They were born pre-maturely and their lives hung in the balance. But now, they are in the Church Nursery and in Sunday school.

And there are couples who came in for counseling and their marriages were so awful that I didn’t think they were going to make it. But we prayed together, and we prayed, and today, they are more in love with each other than they ever thought they could be.

And there are people who I have prayed with during devastating financial circumstances, where it seemed like everything was coming apart. And today, they are prospering.

It may not have happened according to my time table or theirs, but God answers our prayers … sometimes naturally, sometimes supernaturally … but God hears every one of our prayers when we pray.

So, today I want to give you this challenge. As it says in James 5:13-16, “If any among you are sick, call for the elders of the church and let them pray for you and the prayer of faith will raise them up.” I want to challenge you to get involved in the opportunities that we have for lifting one another up in prayer. Every Sunday evening at 5:30, people gather here at the church to pray. The prayer concerns in the bulletin… you can pray for them at home every day. You can become part of the email prayer chain that receives prayer concerns throughout the week. We need people who are willing to pray for one another. We want to develop teams that are praying on Sunday mornings for the worship services and for our Sunday School teachers and children, and for our ministries throughout the week. Just call us this week and we’ll tell you how you can participate.

And finally, I want to challenge you make prayer a part of your daily life. Because we cannot be a Christian; we cannot follow Christ; we cannot experience the fullness of the Christian faith; we cannot see the glory of God’s miracles and healing work in our life; we cannot experience God’s presence, power, grace, and mercy, unless we become a people who pray.