1 And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.
Introduction
In 1956 Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigators, interviewed 100 missionary candidates for one of our evangelical mission boards. He asked each one of them this question: “Do you have a systematic devotional life?”
A devotional life is a time when you meet God for prayer and Bible study on a daily basis. Only eight out of 100 replied in the affirmative. You might as well forget about following Christ and turn in your discipleship badge unless you are willing to pay the price of a disciplined devotional life.
Prayer is the breath of discipleship. It is as essential to your spiritual life as your physical breath is to your physical life. Ultimately there is no personal religious life without prayer. You can have an institutional religious life without prayer, but not a personal religious life. Unless we meet God in prayer, we never meet him at all.
The measure of our immaturity and our pride is how long we think we can go without God and prayer. If you want to change your life, I mean really change it, then I challenge you to develop a systematic devotional life. Learn to meet God at the beginning of every day, and in six months you will be a different person. That’s a money-back guarantee.
The greatest argument for prayer is Jesus on his knees. Follow him through any one of the four gospels, marking the accounts that tell of Jesus praying or his teachings about prayer and you will be absolutely amazed at the place of prayer in the life of Jesus. There are more commands in the Bible to pray than to do anything else. God not only commands us to pray, but there are more promises concerning prayer than anything else in the Bible.
Jesus, God’s Son, is the supreme example of prayer. Jesus prayed at his baptism (Luke 3:21). When the multitudes sought him out and his popularity was at its height, Jesus withdrew to pray all night (Luke 5:16). When his enemies turned against him and sought to destroy him, Jesus prayed (Luke 6:11-12). He spent all night in prayer before he picked his 12 apostles (Luke 6:12-16). Most committees have a prayer at the beginning of their meeting and one at the end and then they do what they want in between. Jesus sought to completely know and do the will of God in his life.
On one occasion, when Jesus had finished praying, his disciples asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.” This is the only thing that his disciples ever asked him to teach them. They never asked him to teach them to preach. They never asked that he teach them to perform miracles. They never asked that he teach them to get along better with other people. But they did ask him to teach them about prayer. They obviously recognized that this was the secret of his great and wonderful life.
Jesus recognized that his disciples needed a recipe for prayer, so he gave them that recipe in the Lord’s Prayer. If you told me to go into the kitchen to bake a cake, and you didn’t give me a recipe, I would end up with a mess. After two or three messes, I would throw up my hands and quit.
That’s the way people are with prayer. Without a recipe, they soon become discouraged and quit. So Jesus gave us a recipe in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13). He taught us that prayer begins with a right relationship. We are to pray “Our Father.”
Then we are to pray in the right attitude—the attitude of reverence and surrender. We are to pray, “Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Then we are to tell God what we need. We are to tell him about our past, present, and future needs. We begin with the first and most immediate need, which is bread for today. Then we ask forgiveness of yesterday’s sin. Next, we are to pray that God will lead us so we do not fall into temptation, and that in the hour of evil he will deliver us from the clutches of Satan. Peace for the past, sustenance for the present, and hope for the future are all to be a part of our praying. Do not refrain; tell God what to do in prayer. Tell him your problem and let him do what he wants with it.
Did Jesus teach his disciples to pray? Look in on them in the Upper Room after Jesus’ ascension into heaven. They are not attempting to organize a Sunday school. They are not busy printing bulletins. They are praying. As a result, the Holy Spirit comes upon them on the Day of Pentecost. Thereafter there were four things to which they were continually devoting themselves: the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer (Acts 2:42). When divisions arose in the church, deacons were elected so the apostles could have time to preach and pray (Acts 6:4). Many deacons have driven preachers to pray, but that’s not the kind of praying the apostles intended.
One of the greatest examples of the practice, priority, and power of prayer in the New Testament church is found in the story of Peter’s deliverance from prison (Acts 12). King Herod was doing evil to the church. He killed James, the brother of John, with a sword. When he saw that this pleased the religious leadership of his day, he proceeded to arrest Peter and put him in prison, intending to kill him after the Passover. Peter was the accepted leader of the New Testament church, so he was a very special prisoner. To guarantee his captivity, Herod assigned 16 guards to watch him around the clock. There were four teams of four guards who each worked six-hour shifts. At every hour of the day and night four guards were especially assigned to Peter. This was a serious situation.
The church appeared helpless and hopeless in the face of Peter’s arrest and approaching death. What could they do? They had no standing in the community. They had no friends in high places who could pull political strings. They had no money. They had no power sufficient to storm the jail and overcome the guards. What could they do? Only one thing—pray.
Luke records, “But prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him” (Acts 12:5). All the church could do was pray. No matter how dark the night, no matter how hopeless the situation appears, no matter how difficult the circumstances, we have never done all that we can do until we have prayed. As long as we can pray there is a glimmer of hope.
Sometimes we find ourselves in this same situation. For example, when we or some member of our family becomes critically ill, or a wayward child is in trouble with the law, or our job is in jeopardy, then we feel absolutely helpless and hopeless. What can we do in such an hour as that? We can still pray. We have never exhausted all of our resources until we have committed our needs to God.
When the church did that, God performed a mighty miracle. He sent his angel to the prison to rescue Peter. Peter was asleep between two soldiers, bound with two chains. The angel tapped him on the side to awaken him. As he did, the chains fell from his hands and the angel quickly led him safely out of the prison. At first Peter thought that it was just a dream. When he finally realized that he was actually free, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many were gathered together praying. He knocked on the door of the gate, and a young lady named Rhoda answered his knock. When she heard his voice, she knew it was Peter. Without even opening the gate, she turned and ran to tell the others. But they didn’t believe her.
Isn’t that just like us? We pray for things but don’t really believe that they are going to happen. We ask God for miracles and then try to explain them away. It was only after great insistence that she convinced them that Peter was really standing outside the door. When they saw him, they were astonished.
After a brief visit Peter went into hiding because he knew Herod would be searching for him that next day. When Herod learned of the escape, he was infuriated. In fact, after a search of the city failed to find Peter, the guards who were commissioned to watch him were put to death. It was not many days afterward that Herod, a proud and pompous man, allowed the people to acclaim him as God. Immediately the angel of the Lord struck him dead. With Herod gone and a period of peace in the church, the word of God grew and multiplied greatly.
As we review the events of this chapter, there are some questions that come to mind. Why was James killed and Peter delivered? Couldn’t God have saved James as well? Why didn’t he? The only answer this chapter suggests is this: prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him (Acts 12:5). Prayer made the difference. Peter was kept in prison, as was James. The difference lay in the word “but.” “But” is always a crisis word indicating a change in direction. The church prayed and as a result Peter was free.
Perhaps you are thinking, “If God determined that James would die and Peter would be set free, what difference did the prayer of the church make?” It made a difference in three areas.
First of all, prayer has the ability to postpone or delay the judgment of God—or the victory of Satan, as in this case. James was killed, but Peter’s execution was postponed to a later date. Prayer may not remove the threat entirely, but it can change the time schedule. That is the consistent teaching of the scriptures about prayer.
Second, prayer has the ability to give us peace in difficult situations. There is a clear implication here that Peter was at peace even though he was in prison. How could he sleep on the night of his execution? If you knew that you were to be executed tomorrow morning—that your head would he chopped off—would you have a good night’s sleep tonight? Peter slept peacefully and soundly, but it was not because he was such a great man of faith. Peter was like us, often weak and fearful. It was because the church was praying for him. That is why God gave him a peaceful heart. Prayer does this for us when we undergo times of difficulty and trouble.
Third, prayer can produce sudden changes, like the death of Herod. I don’t think the church was praying for the king to die. We are not told in scripture to pray in this way about those in authority. But the church was praying that God would intervene, and as a result of their intercession, God removed Herod altogether. This vicious, cruel tyrant to whom human life meant nothing was suddenly removed from the scene because people who were responsive to God and dependent upon him cried for his help.
This is a marvelous challenge to prayer. It shows us again the practice, priority, and marvelous power of prayer in the New Testament church. God had said in the days of Jeremiah, “Call on me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not” (Jeremiah 33:3). God is a god of miracle-working power when his people pray. We need to learn to pray big prayers. John Newton wrote:
Thou art coming to a king:
Large petitions with thee bring,
For His grace and power are such,
None can ever ask too much.
But let me caution you. Make prayer your first choice, not your last. The minister asked the child, “Do you pray every night?” “No,” she replied coyly. “Some nights I don’t need anything.”
People say, “Pray for me; we tried everything else.” Is that a compliment to God? Let me ask you this, “If you were God, wouldn’t it be a compliment if the first thing your children did was come to you for help?” Nothing honors God more than when you go to him first. Make God your first choice and not your last chance. Pray more from conviction and less from crisis. Most of our prayers are from crises. We don’t pray until we have troubles or needs.
We ought to pray in advance. For example, we know that our children are going to get married one of these days. We should be praying for them, their marriage, and their mate right now. If we prayed more from conviction, then we could pray less in crisis.
Peter’s experience teaches us three important lessons about prayer. We should pray together, we should pray persistently, and we should pray specifically.
1. You must pray together.
We know that we ought to pray privately. Jesus talks about entering into our closet to pray. We know also that we ought to pray together as families. But what about prayer in the church?
Here is an encouragement for corporate prayer with the body of Christ: Luke tells us that prayer was made by the church unto God for Peter. At the outset of his ministry Jesus said, “My house is the house of prayer” (Luke 19:46). When we think of God’s house, how many of us think of it as a place of prayer? We think of it primarily as a place of preaching, music, teaching—even a place of recreation. Few of us think of it as a place of prayer.
Jesus taught us to pray together. He said, “Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth about anything that you shall ask, it shall be done for you by my father which is in heaven” (Matthew 18:19). The Greek word translated to agree in this verse is a derivative of our word symphony, meaning literally “to be in accord” or “to sound together.” There is tremendous power when the people of God harmonize together in prayer. The church should be offering up to God continually a great symphony of prayer.
To be sure, we ought to pray separately. This is right and good, but we ought also to pray together. A church requires togetherness. Halford Luccock said, “If a municipal water system is needed, it is not enough to encourage each citizen to dig his own well. We must join together and create one great source of supply.” The people of God need to pray together.
2. You must pray persistently.
The church in Jerusalem prayed “without ceasing.” The word ceasing literally means “extended” or “outstretched.” They prayed for an extended period of time. They stretched themselves out in prayer. They didn’t pray just once or twice and quit. They prayed and they kept right on praying.
This is hard to do. It takes much discipline. It is hard to have a devotional life at all. We already live full lives, and we think we are too busy to pray. Did you read the newspaper this morning? Did you eat this morning? Did you watch television? Then you really do have time to pray. It is just a matter of priority.
Let me show you how you can find time to pray. What time do you get up? What time do you have breakfast? What time do you go to work? What time do you go to bed? These questions indicate that we have some fixed points in our life. Starting at one of those fixed points, you can set a time for prayer. What time do you usually pray? You should be able to answer that just as easily. You will never pray as you should unless you make time for it on a regular consistent schedule. You may have to get up early in order to find that time.
The secret to getting up early is to go to bed early. Someone has said, “You can’t hoot with the owls at night and soar with the eagles during the day.” The secret of the Christian life is continuing to die to things that are good so that you can live for things that are better. You can die to the newspaper so that you can live to the Bible. I like to pray in the morning for several reasons: One, the devil has been working all night and if he is ever tired, he is tired in the morning. Second, the lines to heaven aren’t jammed in the morning—you almost have God to yourself. Third, if you start the day right, it will more likely go right for you. As Henry Ward Beecher said, “The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.”
If it is difficult to begin a prayer life, it is even more difficult to continue one. One thing making it so difficult is that we easily become discouraged. We do not always receive the answer from God that we want. There are at least four answers to prayer that God may give us.
First, he may give a direct answer. He answers exactly as we ask.
Second, he may give a denial answer. “No” and “yes” are both answers to prayer. Most of us have lived long enough to thank God that all of our prayers have not been answered. I have a friend who once said, “If God had answered all of my prayers, I’d have as many wives as Brigham Young.” If God gave me what I asked for in the ignorance of childishness and selfishness, I would have destroyed myself.
One of the signs that you are growing spiritually is that you get fewer and fewer “no” answers. You learn what not to ask for. The older our children get, the less often we should have to say “no” to them. That’s partly because they have learned what not to ask for.
Third, God sometimes gives us a different answer. He gives exceedingly abundantly above anything that we even think or ask. St. Augustine told in his book Confessions how his pious mother, Monica, had begged God in prayer not to let her young son go to Italy and get away from her influence. But Augustine did go to Italy. What Monica did not know was that the Bishop of Milan was the best-equipped person in all the world to challenge the mind and the heart of her prodigious pagan. Augustine went to hear Ambrose preach because of his reputation for rhetoric, but in the process what the Bishop was saying as well as how he said it got through to Augustine. More than anyone else, Ambrose was used by God to reach this gifted young man. In retrospect, Augustine said, “God denied my mother the form of her request that he might eventually grant her the substance of her request.”
Finally, God sometimes gives us a delayed answer. Many people go astray waiting for an answer more than they do in any other way. We have to learn to wait on God. In the example of Peter’s deliverance, God waited until the very last night before he set his servant free. If the people had not persisted in prayer, they would have stopped too soon.
3. You must pray specifically.
The scriptures say that the church prayed without ceasing unto God for “him.” They prayed for Peter by name. They didn’t pray “God bless all the apostles.” Or “God bless all the people in jail.” They prayed for Peter by name.
Some years ago, Josef Nordenhaug said to a group of Ridgecrest staffers, “Don’t ever pray for me by simply saying, ‘God bless all for whom we should pray.’ That’s typically American, the wholesale way. But please pray for me more personally.”
That’s exactly the way I feel. Pray retail and not wholesale for me. Wholesale is praying like this: “Lord, bless me and all my folks. Forgive me of all my sins, and guide me today. Amen. And P.S., Lord, bless all the missionaries around the world.” You can pray that way in 15 seconds a day and cover everything in the whole world. Pray specifically. Thank God specifically for things. Call people by name. Ask for forgiveness regarding specific sins. You don’t sin wholesale, do you? If you sin wholesale, I think God will give you permission to repent wholesale. Learn to pray specifically and you will receive more specific answers to your prayers.
In one of his teachings on prayer, Jesus said, “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13). In this passage Jesus gives us a written authorization recognized in any legal community as valid. In legal circles it is called the power of attorney. The power of attorney is the legal right given so that one person can act in the place of another. Jesus gives us that right. We are not worthy to approach the holy throne of God except through our advocate, Jesus Christ. The Bible says, “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God ... let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:14-16).
God, for Christ’s sake, forgives our sins. God, for Christ’s sake, supplies our needs. God, for Christ’s sake, receives our prayers. The person who comes with confidence to the throne of grace has seen that his approach to God has been made possible because of Jesus Christ.
Many may ask, “Is there no other way to pray except through Jesus Christ?” You may pray, but according to the Bible, “There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). A disciple is a person who not only accepts Jesus as his Lord and Savior but also recognizes him as his High Priest. He daily approaches God in prayer through Jesus. We follow Jesus as Lord and we pray through him as our High Priest. That is part of what it means to be a disciple.