https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwnymjMUFp8 (You Tube video) “You just need to know how to use the tools that you have!” That’s
what the man said and how true that is for us as we go into week two of
spiritual boot camp. We must know how to use the tools that we have and the
greatest tool we have is this weapon here. I’ve shown you this cutting edge,
state of the art, weapons system before (really, just a “Bug-a-Salt” gun). Do
you remember what it is called? It is the Patriots
Right and Your Every Responsibility weapon, better known as the P.R.A.Y.E.R gun.
It is the most powerful weapon in the
world. It has the power to kill and destroy but also the power to heal and
create. It can make one uncomfortable or bring great comfort. It can bring
chaos to the enemy or wisdom to the user. It has been used with great effect
for thousands of years and while almost everybody says they use it, very few
use it to its effectiveness.
My dear family, we are literally in
the battle of our lives; a spiritual battle that has spiritual consequences but
also physical, mental, financial, emotional and every other kind of consequence
as well. We have consecrated ourselves in preparation for this battle. We
understand why we have to fight since we as believers have been changed by God
and want our lives to bring Him glory in everything that we do. We have a long
legacy to follow; footsteps to follow of people like Peter, Paul, Abraham and
Jesus Himself, not to mention we don’t want to let our fellow soldiers down.
If we are going to combat Satan and
his demons and keep them from ruining our lives and even killing us dead, then
we must learn to use the weapon of prayer as it was intended. There is no
winning the battle without it, in fact, and to do it right is actually very
simple but very difficult at the same time. It’s not complicated but it’s not
easy. You’ll see what I mean as we go along.
I read an article (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5267485/A-quarter-non-believers-pray-faced-crisis.html) just this past week that said one in four non-believers
pray when confronted by tough times - despite insisting they are not
religious. For atheists and agnostics, personal crisis or tragedy is the
most common reason for them to resort to prayer, with a quarter admitting they
pray for comfort or to feel less lonely.
Isn’t that
fascinating? 25% of people who say they don’t believe in God are praying to God
for help when they need it. Do you know what that is like? That is like
grabbing the P.R.A.Y.E.R. gun but
not loading it with ammo, not cocking it and not taking the safety off then
going “Pew! Pew! Pew!” to the enemy.
You might get lucky and accidently poke somebody in the eye but it is not an
effective weapon like that.
I find it
interesting that the article also says that a third of people pray in the
morning or before they go to sleep. People are also increasingly likely to
solicit support from God while cooking
or exercising. Now, I understand that!
When I cook and when I exercise are good times for me to be praying
because I don’t want to do either one nor am I good at either one and one of
them is probably gonna kill me.
But the real
problem is that too many true believers treat prayer like those atheists do.
They have no belief, no faith, no passion and no results. So, let’s see what
scripture says about this weapon and how to use it effectively. Turn in your
Bibles to the beautiful and powerful little book of James in the New
Testament. James is between Hebrews and
Peter way in the back nearly to Revelation.
In preparing
for this message, my challenge was to find the one passage on prayer that would
really sum it all up; the passage that would explain things the best and it was
hard to find just one. There are so many good passages. There are great
examples of prayer from Genesis to Revelation. I love to read Daniel’s prayers.
Abraham and Moses both talked to God very intimately and powerfully.
Samson had
probably one good prayer in his life that we know of but it killed thousands of
the enemy. Samuel prayed when he was a little boy and didn’t even know he was
praying. (1 Sam. 3) Nehemiah could give a clinic on powerful and effective
prayer. Job prayed quite a bit and some of it was good and some of it I
wouldn’t recommend copying at all.
As for
modeling prayer, nobody did it better than Jesus, of course, but in the book of
James, James tells us some vital information about prayer; info I hope that
will change the way all of us pray. Turn to James 5, verse 16. Last week we
read a whole chapter. Today it’s just one verse. James 5:16 says…hang on just a minute.
Normally I
am pretty content reading from the New International Version but today I’m
blowing the dust off my King James. I think it better conveys the true meaning
and it is important to know exactly what James was saying. I looked at half a
dozen different versions and none of them are wrong necessarily, but I believe
KJV is closest to the original.
It says, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye
may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
I like the NIV because it is easier to understand without all the “thous” and
“thees” and “availeths” but the two words in front of the word “prayer” are too
important to leave out and the NIV does and some of the others do too. But I do
like the words that the NIV uses to replace “availeth”. It says that prayer is
powerful and effective.
So, I’ll
tell you what. With your permission, or without it, I’m going to mash these two
versions up to what I think is the most correct and easiest to understand. I’m
also going to leave off the first sentence although it is important and I hope
to discuss it tonight. But if you combine the KJV and the NIV in the last
sentence of James 5:16 it says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful and
effective.” Oh,
that’s good and that makes me happy. That’s the TBV we are using today; the
Todd Blair Version.
I say the
two words (effectual and fervent) in front of “prayer” are important because
what is prayer? What’s the definition of prayer that we have all been taught
since little kids in Sunday School? Prayer is talking to God, right? That’s a
good definition. Nothing wrong with that but we can talk to each other and
hardly use any words. A wife can talk to
a husband with a look and a shrug, one word and a frown and they would say they
are talking to each other.
But an
effectual fervent conversation is different and it is the effectual and fervent
part of prayer that makes it powerful and effective. See, those two words are
just one word in the original Greek and the word is “energeo”. Does anybody
want to take a wild guess as to what word we get from “energeo”? We get the
word “energy” from it and it means to work at it, to put out some energy and
effort, to be active. It also means to be stretched out. All of that is a lot
different than having a casual conversation.
It has the
picture of a horse jumping over a fence or a baseball player making a diving
catch; using all effort to accomplish the goal. There is nothing wrong with
having a casual conversation with God. In fact, 1 Thessalonians 5 says to pray without ceasing and you can’t always
be praying with such effort. We ought to be continually talking and
listening to God; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your
path (Prov. 3:6).
But when you
are in the heat of the battle and the bombs are falling and Satan is chomping
on your leg and your world is falling apart, that is not the time for, “Now I lay me down to sleep”! Now is the
time for effectual fervent prayer.
One of my
all-time favorite preachers was Adrian Rogers. He told the story of getting a
call late one night from a church member asking if he would come pray for this
man’s wife who had a malignancy. The man was known to be a drunk and he lived
with his mother but the young pastor was happy to go over and pray with them.
He said he
got there and the three of them gathered around the kitchen table to pray, the
man, who was drunk, his mother and Dr. Rogers. He said he began to pray the
best he knew how and thought he was doing a fine job of it but after a minute
or two the drunk man interrupted. “Pray,
preacher! You ain’t praying!”
He said he
was a little offended at that but he cranked it up a notch, praying louder and
more pastoral than before and that went on for a minute or so and the man said
it again with Rogers mid-sentence. “Pray,
preacher! You ain’t praying!” He said that was just too much. A guy can’t
pray while he’s being hollered at like that so he just stopped.
But when he
did stop praying he opened his eyes and noticed the little old mother wasn’t
there but he could hear her talking. So he got up from the table and followed
the sound until he found the woman in another room, stretched out on the floor
with her face on the rug.
Now, if
you’ve never heard Adrian Rogers preach, well, nobody does it like him. Let me
read it in his words. “I listened as she
ascended the ladder to heaven. I listened as she pushed back the gates of
pearl. I listened as she walked down the golden streets. I listened as she went
through the curtain into the Holy of Holies. I listened as she applied the
blood there on the altar and pled with God, as she got hold of Him. I listened
as she groaned and agonized in prayer, stretched out there on the floor. Then I
knew what the son meant when he said, “Pray preacher, you ain’t praying.” He
had heard his mama pray.”
Now, we know
that our physical position while in prayer is not the most important aspect of
our prayers. In scripture we see people praying while standing, walking,
kneeling, with arms up, head up, eyes up or laying on the ground. Jonah even
prayed a powerful and effective prayer in the fetal position in the belly of a
fish but there is something powerful, something humbling, something respectful
about being on your knees or even on your face.
It’s hard to
be proud in that position and prideful prayer never did anybody any good. In
all the paintings of Jesus praying in the garden, how do you see Him praying?
It seems like in every picture it shows Jesus as a brown-haired handsome man,
kneeling with holy hands clasped in front of Him with angelic face upturned to
Heaven.
The problem
with those pictures, well, one of the problems, is that Matthew 26 is where we find this story and it says, “38Then he said to them, "My soul is
overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with
me." 39Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and
prayed.”
Now, the
wrong thing to take away from this is that if you lay on the ground, God has to
answer your prayer. We all know that’s not the case. 1 Samuel 16:7 says, “The LORD
does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward
appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." God doesn’t care your
physical position but He looks at your heart and if your heart is tender toward
God and humble and desperate for His grace and mercy, then that prayer becomes
more powerful and effective.
I love to
hear my Mama pray. Just this past week I heard her say the blessing for the
meal we were about to eat and she wasn’t two sentences in before her voice
cracked and she started to cry. In fact, I don’t think I have ever heard my mom
pray that she didn’t cry. It’s not fake or ginned up. She honestly has such a
respect and fear of God and I think she has an understanding of Who she is
talking to.
She is
talking to the Creator of the universe, the great I AM, the King of kings and
Lord of lords, the One who gives and the One who takes away. She has known Him
for years and is still moved when she
goes into His presence as we all should be. This is God we are talking to, not
your buddy at Walmart. It ought to be a fearful and wonderful, amazing thing to
come into His presence for anything…even just lunch.
There is
more to say on that subject but I have to get to the other part of this verse
that makes prayer powerful and effective. Going back to James 5:16, it says that the effectual, fervent prayer of a
RIGHTEOUS man is powerful and effective. That word “righteous” is vitally
important but it is a problem, isn’t it? We have no ability to achieve
righteousness in and of ourselves. But Christians possess the righteousness of
Christ, because “God made him who had no
sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”
(2 Corinthians 5:21). This is an amazing truth. On the cross, Jesus exchanged our sin for His
perfect righteousness so that we can one day stand before God and He will see
not our sin, but the holy righteousness of the Lord Jesus. (gotquestions.org)
We call that
imputed righteousness when God looks at us with the righteousness of Jesus but
there is also imparted righteousness which is different. Don’t worry. You don’t
necessarily have to know the difference. Just know that you want both imputed and imparted
righteousness. Simply put, imputed comes
the moment you accept Jesus to be Lord of your life and trust in Him for
forgiveness and eternal life in Heaven. Imparted
righteousness is what we get day by day as we ask God to forgive our sins and
we remain in “right” standing with Him. Right standing is imparted
righteousness.
I say all of
that to say that one of the biggest hold-ups to powerful and effective prayer
is not being in right standing with God. Remember, sin always puts a barrier
between us and God. I read the verse 2 weeks ago when we talked about
consecrating ourselves but it deserves to be repeated. Isaiah 59:2 says, “But your
iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face
from you, so that he will not hear.” That’s pretty plain.
Sin takes
all the power and effectiveness out of our prayer. Yes, God is merciful and
gracious and is oftentimes very generous but without the power of God in your
prayer through righteousness…you are going into a gunfight with an unloaded
gun. This is just another example of why sin is the very worst thing that can
happen to us. There are benefits of obedience and consequences of disobedience.
(BOOCOD)
Now, I hear
all the Joel Osteen lovers out there. “Oh
dear, he’s talking about sin again and that makes me uncomfortable. Why doesn’t
he just talk about God’s grace and love and rainbows and unicorns? Maybe show
some puppy and kitten videos every now and then? I want to feel good when I go
to church, not feel like I need to repent.”
Today, of all days, is when you need
to come to the front to pray if you feel God leading you to. You can turn
around and use the pew as an altar if you want. Come to the front. Stand up,
lay down. Nothing done for show or for others to notice. You don’t worry about
what other people are doing. They won’t worry about you. This time of prayer is
between you and holy God.
There are some here at the front to
pray with you if you want but now is the time to do business with God. Speak to
Him. Listen to Him. Be still before Him and know He is God. Maybe you need to
repent for the daily sins you have committed. Maybe you need to truly repent
for the very first time and ask God to be Lord of your life and forgive you of
all your sins and let Him change your life. Do that right now.
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