©1999 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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5/2/99
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Prayer Truth And Error
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Philippians 4:6-7
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5/2/99 Phili. 4:6-7 Prayer Truth and Error
Phil. 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in
everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving let your requests be made
known to God.
Phil. 4:7 And the peace of God, which
surpasses all comprehension, will guard
your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Our study of the book of Philippians
brings us today
to a topic that is at the same time
one of the most exciting
and one of the most danger-filled topics
in all of Christian doctrine.
We are going to look at some comments
Paul makes about PRAYER.
And just to help us appreciate
the volatile nature of this topic
I want you to look at the way in which my
just announcing it
affected some of you.
Some of you immediately felt a little guilty
when I mentioned prayer.
You had that little religious twinge within you,
telling yourself you really should have been
praying more than you have been.
And others of you immediately reached
for several of your personal prayer doctrines-
and are now anxiously waiting to see
if I'm going to give the "right" answers
or the "right" emphasis.
I would guess there are also some of you
who are anxiously hoping
maybe I can help you make some sense
out of what is certainly
one of the more confusing areas
in our relationship with our God.
Well, let me start by sharing with you
both what we are
and what we are not going to do today.
We are not going to launch into
an extended series on prayer
because we are not studying prayer,
we're studying the book of Philippians.
We are, however,
going to look closely
at two remarkable verses about prayer
given to us by Paul in this book.
And in the process of looking at these two verses
we will need to lay some groundwork
for this whole topic.
And just to keep this whole discussion
in a proper Biblical context
I want to start with some general
observations.
#1. First of all, let me start with a simple definition:
Prayer as it is presented in the Bible
is nothing more or less
than a child of God talking with his or her heavenly Father.
Now I know at first glance
that sounds absurdly obvious.
But to be honest,
I believe it is that one truth
that Satan works hardest to defeat
of any other truth in the whole amazing
world of prayer.
You see,
there is an intense,
calculated,
massive warfare on the part of Satan
to blind Christians to the true nature of prayer.
But what we seldom realize
is that Satan's strategy
has two equally effective
but completely different
forms of attack.
The first one we would expect.
It is to keep the Christian
from ever discovering the truth
about the opportunity God has given us
to pray,
to talk directly with Him,
to Him about anything in our
lives.
And we'll talk more about this
when we get into Paul's comments
here in Philippians 4:5-6.
But there is another equally effective
and in some ways
far more devastating type of attack
that Satan brings against true prayer.
If Satan cannot get the Christian
to stay away from prayer altogether,
then he will seek to convince the Christian
either that prayer is a religious duty
or that it is an end in itself.
The religious duty aspect
may be the easier of the two for us to
understand.
Satan's underlying goal in this attack
is to take a gift God has given us
and turn it into a religious law
or duty we feel we must fulfill.
The life God offers us in Christ
is a life in which
He takes up residence within us
and literally transforms us
by living through us
from the inside out.
He does not call us to perform for Him,
He calls us to discover how to allow Him
to perform in us and through us.
The great enemy of that life in the Spirit
is man-made religious systems.
And the life-blood of those systems
is a list of religious duties
that we believe we can perform
and in so doing improve our standing
or our acceptability to God.
And let me tell you
how Satan handles this
when it comes to prayer.
The truth is
the privilege of praying is one of the most
incredible gifts God has ever given us.
He has told us that
because Christ has removed forever
our barrier of sin
between us and God,
we now live constantly in His presence
and have the unlimited privilege of speaking to
Him,
sharing with Him,
communicating with Him forever.
Satan comes along and says,
"Every good Christian will have a "time of
prayer" each day.
Have you prayed yet today?
And the underlying message is two-fold:
First, prayer is something you should
set aside a specific time for,
and second,
it is something you should do every day.
If you have a time of prayer every day
God will be pleased with you.
And I can offer you a little test
that can help you know
to what degree this lie has taken root
in your own life.
If you find yourself feeling guilty if you didn't have
your prayer time,
or pleased with yourself if you did,
then you've bought the lie.
If either of those responses crop up,
then prayer has ceased to be
simply communication with God
and has become an element in a
religious system.
Converting prayer into a religious duty
is one of Satan's strategies,
and the other is turning prayer into
an end in itself.
I can share with you
a popular cliche
that will explain part of what I'm trying to
say here.
Q. Have you ever seen a plaque
or a bumper sticker that says,
PRAYER CHANGES THINGS?
Folks,
prayer never has
and never will change anything.
Prayer doesn't change things,
GOD changes things.
This lie takes a wide variety of forms.
There is a popular belief system in our nation
that suggests the act of praying
is good for a person.
Prayer and meditation are lumped together
and we are encouraged to do them
because they're good for us.
They keep us in touch with our spirituality.
Now I will certainly acknowledge
that structuring our lives
in a way that reduces our stress levels
and allows us to mentally pull out of the
battle on a regular basis
is a good thing.
But that is not the same thing
as Christian prayer.
Prayer as it is presented in the Bible
is nothing more or less
than a child of God talking with his or her heavenly Father.
Anything that makes prayer
an end in itself
is not Christian.
Ex. It's like a marriage counselor saying,
"You know,
when a husband comes in the house at night
it's really good for him to talk.
Talking is good.
It doesn't matter where he talks.
It doesn't matter whether his wife is in the
same room,
or whether she's listening.
It doesn't really even matter if she's home.
Just talking is good for the man."
Talking in itself is nothing.
A husband and wife talking with one another
about their day
is of great value.
Prayer in itself is nothing.
A Christian talking with his God
about his life
is of great value.
And there is one other aspect of this business
of making prayer an end in itself
that I just want to offer
a strong word of caution about.
The purpose of prayer
is sharing ourselves,
our lives,
and our concerns with our Heavenly
Father.
If you ever find yourself
becoming more concerned
about how you pray
than you are about Who you're praying
to,
back off from it.
It isn't your prayers God loves,
it's you.
It isn't your proper order
or proper technique,
or proper phrasing He enjoys,
it's you He enjoys.
And then one final comment here -
if you ever begin to look at prayer
as a tool by which
you can get God to do what you want
you've been deceived.
God is not the great enemy
we somehow force into submission to our will
through getting enough people praying
or through drumming up the right
prayer techniques.
No man ever has
or ever will manipulate God
through prayer
or anything else.
All true prayer
begins with the affirmation
of the absolute goodness of our God.
Paul says it so well:
Rom. 8:31 ¶ What then shall we say to
these things? If God is for us, who is
against us?
Rom. 8:32 He who did not spare His own
Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how
will He not also with Him freely give us all
things?
And as long as I've gotten into this,
I'm going to say one other thing here
that will likely open me up to
misunderstanding.
I do believe
that there is a powerful
and extremely dangerous
satanic deception
that plays on our natural fleshly mistrust of God,
a deception in which well-meaning Christians
are deceived into believing
that we must somehow conquer God
with our prayers,
finding the right approach,
the right technique,
the right prayer formula
that will finally motivate God
to do what we want done.
And I believe there are times
when Satan himself
will answer those prayers
the way we want them answered
in order to further fuel
our distorted concept of our Creator.
Our God is not an emotionally distant
semi-hostile spiritual force
we must somehow conquer
or grudgingly recruit
in order to meet our needs.
All healthy prayer begins
with the understanding that our God
knows us
and loves us
and cares about us more deeply
than anyone else ever has or ever will.
And then just one more broad observation
about true prayer -
#2. Every New Testament promise and instruction
concerning prayer
is made exclusively to the Christian.
We in the United States
are very fond of having National Days of Prayer,
and political Prayer Breakfasts,
and times of national prayer for certain
needs that catch the attention of the population.
We have invocations,
and benedictions at all sorts of public
gatherings.
And underlying all of this activity
is the assumption that God responds to every
human being's prayers the same way.
Though we don't put it this way,
we view prayers to God
in much the same way as we view
fan mail sent to some famous person.
We may even picture God
filled with delight on national days of prayer
with all those prayers coming up to Him.
And the underlying lie here once again
is the belief that it is the PRAYERS God loves,
no matter who says them
or what motivates them.
And let me just state the obvious again -
it isn't prayer God loves,
it's US.
And He certainly doesn't need a little ego boost
through a few million more prayers
coming His way.
The truth is
the promises surrounding prayer
are promises God has made exclusively to
Christians.
God says nothing whatsoever to us
about the way in which He will respond
to the prayers of non-christians.
Now, I didn't say He won't answer those prayers.
All I said is that He makes no promise to.
I know of no place in Scripture
where God says anything to us
about the prayers of non-christians.
True prayer is a child of God
talking with his or her Father.
In that context our Heavenly Father
has given us strong affirmation
that He hears,
He cares deeply,
and He responds.
He says nothing to us
about how He responds
to the requests of those who are not His
children.
It's like this.
This past week my daughter, Joni, and I
were in the grocery store.
While we were in the store
Joni picked up several things she needed.
When we got to the check-out line
she put them down on the little conveyer belt
along with the things I was getting,
and I wrote a check for all of it.
Neither one of us even gave it a thought.
Now why would she do that?
Because I'm her father.
And why would I do that?
Because she's my daughter.
Imagine, though, what would happen
if there would have been
another young lady behind us in line.
And when the little belt started moving
she reached over an placed her purchases in with
ours
so that I would pay for hers as well.
There are some circumstances
in which I might go ahead
and include her things in my check.
But it would be a judgement call on my part.
I would have no commitment to her
to do so.
The only commitments God has given us concerning
prayer
are commitments He has made
to those who have placed themselves
under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
You know what prayer is?
It's just one of the many incredible fringe
benefits
of living in a Father-child relationship with
our Creator through Jesus Christ.
And with all of that background
next week we'll take a look
at the remarkable comments Paul makes
concerning prayer
in Philippians 4:6-7.