PRAYER CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE…….Lord Teach Me to Pray”

If you could ask Him anything, would you ask for?

The disciples got this opportunity at one point. 

Luke 11:1.  

They came to Jesus one day and they had a request. 

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."

Why, of all the things they could have asked Jesus, why did they ask that question? 

I think it was because they saw the results of prayer in His life.  They saw Him pray and they saw what happened.  It's interesting that the disciples watched Jesus preach the greatest sermons ever, they watched Him do miracles, heal the sick, raise the dead and all kinds of things, but never once did they say, "Lord, teach us to preach" or "Lord, teach us to do miracles" or "Lord, teach us to raise the dead".  Instead they said, "Teach us how to pray."  They saw that was the life support system of Jesus Christ.  They recognized that was the key to His life. 

There is nothing more vital to your Christian life than prayer. 

There are a lot of faulty misconceptions about prayer, a lot of ignorance about how prayer works and why we pray and when to pray. 

-         Some people think prayer is a magic wand.  We kind of wave it at something -- it's a superstitious approach -- and you get what you want.  God is kind of like a genie.  You rub the vase and God comes out and you pray the request -- "My wish is your command!"

-         Some people think prayer is a first aide kit.  For them, prayer is an act of desperation.  Sign for fire extinguisher:  "Use only in emergency."  For a lot of people, prayer is like that:  Use only in emergency.  It is a last resort.  When things finally fall apart, then you pray.  Like the deacon who came to his pastor one day.  The pastor said, "I guess all we can do is pray," and the deacon said, "Has it come to that?"  For us, prayer is like the last thing.  You do everything you can and then you pray.

-         For some people, prayer is a tug of war.  A religious con game that you play with God where you try to convince God to do something nice for you.  The idea is you have to beg and plead and God is some cold-hearted monarch sitting a million miles out in outer space and you have to urge and beg and plead to convince Him that He ought to do something good for you.  It's like a sales pitch.  You keep pestering God until finally God gets so irritated that He finally says, "Ok, I'll give it to you," and He gives in. 

-         The worst idea or the worst misconception about prayer is, for many people, prayer is simply a religious duty.  The basic motivation behind it is guilt.  I know I should pray more, I ought to pray, it's something I ought to do.  It becomes a duty. You have a sense of obligation that if you don't pray you'll be on God's Bad List.  As a result, you go through a meaningless ritual that becomes a rut.  You learn memorized phrases and you get caught in religious clichés and say the same thing over and over.  It's totally meaningless to you but you know you ought to do it.  When you think of prayer you think of one word -- boring! You think, "Why do I have to pray?"  It becomes something you endure rather than something you enjoy. 

In this series, we're going to demolish some of these misconceptions.  Today I want to talk to you about four purposes of prayer. 

FOUR PURPOSES OF PRAYER

1.  Prayer is food for the soul.

Turn to John 15:1-8.

John 15 is actually in the middle of four chapters.  Chapters 13, 14, 15, 16 are Jesus' last words to His disciples, the last discussion that Jesus Christ shared with the twelve disciples before He was crucified on the cross.  He is telling the people repeatedly, "I am going to die and then be resurrected and go back to heaven.  I'm not going to be here physically but I'm going to be here spiritually.  I'm going to put My Spirit in your lives -- the Holy Spirit -- and you can still talk to Me, even though I'm not here physically.  You can talk to Me through prayer." 

Read John 15:1-8

EXAMPLE:  Without water, plants will not live. 

EXAMPLE:  U2 Song.  River in a time of dryness, harbor in the tempest…

It is an opportunity to express our dependence upon God.  It is an act of dedicating ourselves, saying, "God, I need You." 

-         One of our biggest problems in prayer is that we don't feel a dependence upon God. 

-         We don’t want to admit we need God's help. 

o       Instead, we need to admit, "I admit I am inadequate.  I am helpless.  I need Your help in this situation." 

-         As long as you think you're self sufficient and don’t need God, prayer can have no meaning for you.

-         Prayer is a declaration of dependence upon God.  It's our way of saying to God, "This proves I'm depending upon You."

o       It humbles us and shows us we are not in control but God is.  Praying is as if we go to God and say I can’t do this on my own.  I’m checking with you first.

John 15:5-6.

The branch is connected to the vine or stem, if you cut the branch off, it loses all its strength, all its power.  If you cut a Christian off from God, he withers.

Deep-sea divers… they let a diving bell down, 800 feet under the water.  The only link between the people 800 feet below the water was the hose of air.  The hose was the lifeline, the support system, the connection between those above and those below. 

Likewise, prayer is our support system.  You cut it off and you run out of spiritual air.  Prayer is an act of dedication.  It shows our dependence.  Until we realize we need God, we can't pray.

2.  Prayer is the bat phone directly to the mayor’s desk

-         Most couples have a unique way to talk to each other at any time that no one else has the privilege to do.

Try to spend a day and not communicate to anyone at all.  Life cannot exist without communication.

You can't understand a person in marriage unless you communicate with them. 

And you can't understand God, God's will for your life, unless you communicate with Him.

Ever get in a fight over a miscommunication?

It's vital in the Christian life. 

Prayer is food for the souls and it's how we communicate directly with the God of the universe.

On that note…

…You can't communicate with somebody unless you know your relationship to them.  What is our relationship to God? 

John 15:15

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

He says the reason you can ask anything in prayer is because we're friends.  Isn't that amazing? God says, "I don't treat you like servants, like slaves.  I treat you as friends."

We seldom pray -- we have a hard time praying -- because we fail to recognize what a privilege it is to talk to God. 

-         we don’t understand who God is and how much he loves us

Our problem is we have a hard time believing that God is really interested in us. 

We can't seem to conceive that the Creator of the entire universe is interested in car payments and house payments and buying new clothes for the kids for school and the guy at work who irritates you and the fact that you have back problems and everything else. 

When you fully discover how much God really loves you, prayer will no longer be a problem for you.

You wont pray because you have to but because you want to.

Why? Because we love to talk to the people who love us the most. 

-         God loves us more than we could ever know

o       John 3:16

o       Romans 8:35-39. 

35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[m] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Talk to the one who loves you!

3.  Prayer is asking God for something.

Philippians 4:6-7. 

6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

He knows what we need but we still need to ask Him for it.  When we ask, we can guarantee He is going to provide for our needs and that puts our minds at ease.

John 16:23-28.

23In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.

Once again this idea of leaving the Earth but a coming day when He will still be with us and He will give us what we ask for.

-         God wants us to ask Him for things we need

24Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

-         Some of us don’t have because we have never asked

What are you lacking right now in your life simply because you've never asked God for it? 

You've tried other things but you've never stopped to ask God for it. 

Psalm 145:14-17.

14  The LORD upholds all those who fall
       and lifts up all who are bowed down.

 15 The eyes of all look to you,
       and you give them their food at the proper time.

 16 You open your hand
       and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

 17 The LORD is righteous in all his ways

Psalm 37:4

Delight yourself in the LORD
       and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 84:11

For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
       the LORD bestows favor and honor;
       no good thing does he withhold
       from those whose walk is blameless.

Luke 11:11-12.

11"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for^[f] a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

-         This passage is primarily talking about salvation, but within it we see the character of God

-         He is our Father who enjoys doing good things for us

Ask Him if you are allowed to get it, then ask Him for it

It is so much fun when God gives us good gifts, when He blesses us because we are His kids!

4.  Prayer is how God gets things done.

-         nothing great happens without prayer

-         Prayer is How God works through His people

-         God does great things through His people when they put faith in Him and PRAY!

John 14:12-14.

12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Have you been doing what Jesus has been doing?  Have you been raising any dead lately?  Healed any sick? 

How is this possible?

It happens when we pray. “ask me anything in my name.”

When we pray, it can do greater things than Jesus Christ did while He was here on earth. 

-         prayer can go places and do things we cannot do in our own physical strength or body.

-         Nothing can stop prayer.

o       It is our top secret, invisible, secret weapon

o       Nothing has the power to stop prayer

We’ve got a resource that most of the world doesn't have." 

If you can pray, you can make the impossible possible.  All of a sudden you're not trying to work it out on your own.  You've got God's power behind you. 

That's great because He's in a lot better position than you or I are. 

He has a few more strings He can pull, a few more resources at His command. 

He says, "If you pray, I will do."  Our part in cooperating with God's plan in the world is prayer.  We can pray. So the most important thing you can do in your Christian life is pray.

D. L. Moody, a great pastor, once said, "Every great movement of God can be traced to a single praying, kneeling figure." 

I want our church to be a praying church. 

Matthew 21:13a.

"It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be called a house of prayer,'

-         We are to be a house of prayer.

-         We’ve done a lot on our own strength.

-         Pray or be prayed about!

-         Our church could use a few miracles. 

-         Some of you could use a few miracles in your personal life.

Closing

What do you need to ask Him for?