Sermon: Does Prayer Change Anything? (Prayer part 2)

Sermon by Matt Kennedy
August 8th, 2010
Texts: Luke 11:1-13; Genesis 18:22-33; 2nd Kings 20:1-7

Last time we discussed the difference between memorized or rote prayer and spontaneous prayer. We said that sincerity in prayer doesn’t have anything to do with how you feel when you pray or the experience you come away with after prayer. Sincerity is a matter of the will. I can say with all sincerity and truth “I love you” to my mom  even when I am irritated or angry with her. I really love my mom even when I don’t feel it. In the same way, sincerity or authenticity in prayer cannot be judged by how you feel. Sincerity is a function of the will. I am sincere and authentic when I pray the Lord’s prayer, or pray the prayers in the bulletin/prayerbook if in fact, I am communicating what I truly mean, what I believe is true. And the same is true for just praying freely without a text. Meaning what you pray is not the same thing as feeling what you pray.

Now the reason that discussion was necessary is that the prayer that Jesus’ teaches his disciples would have been one that Jesus intended his disciples to memorize and recited as well as as a model for his followers to use when praying freely. In Jesus’ day such prayers were common but because today we tend to pit set prayers against spontaneous prayer, we’ve had to spend time unraveling that.

There is a second question we need to address before we can move into the Lord’s prayer itself: What does prayer do? Is prayer really all that powerful? 

It’s an old saying, but a true one, that prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us.

James writes “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17) So prayer cannot change God.

Now if you know your Old Testament, your brain might run back to the reading from two weeks ago, Gen 18:22-33, where Abraham appears to persuade God to hold back from from destroying Sodom. God’s already told Abraham that he’s going down to investigate Sodom to see whether the people are as wicked as he’s heard and if they are he’ll destroy the city (20-22). Alarm bells should be going off in our heads. Hebrews 4:13 says “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” God knows all people. The behavior of the people of Sodom is no mystery to God. He doesn’t need to find out what’s going on down there. He knows.

But Abraham doesn’t know that God knows and God doesn’t tell him. That should tip us off that there’s more going on than meets the eye. It should also not escape our notice that Abraham starts bargaining right off in v. 23. Now God hasn’t laid down an opening bid. He doesn’t say…”hey Abraham if there are less than 49 people I’m taking that city out.” If he’d said that then there would be at least some basis for the perception that that God changes his mind. But as it stands, there’s no bargaining or persuasion going on because God hasn’t laid out any number to be persuaded from. God’s not being won over to Abraham’s point of view. But, if you read closely, Abraham is taught a lesson about the character of God. God will have mercy on the wicked for the sake of the righteous. There were no righteous in Sodom. There are no righteous here. But as it turns out, God has preserved the entire world on the basis of righteousness of only One Man. So this prayer exchange between God and Abraham has not changed God…but it has deepened Abraham’s understanding of God.

 
Now turn to 2 Kings 20:1-7 and we’ll see a more difficult case. God sends Isaiah to king Hezekiah who is sick to say, “You’re not getting better. Set your affairs in order. You’re going to die.” And then what happens? Hezekiah prays. It’s not a great prayer…”Lord remember how faithful I’ve been” and then he cries a lot. But it’s effective.  Isaiah doesn’t even get out of the king’s palace before God says, alright turn around and tell Hezekiah I’ve given him 15 more years.

What’s going on here? Has God changed his mind? We read earlier from James 1:17, that God does not change and we could add to that Numbers 23:19, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.” But that truth seems to be in conflict with this recorded event.

Let me ask you: do you think God knew that Hezekiah would pray the way that he did? In Psalm 139:3 David writes: “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.” And later in the same Psalm we read: “in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them.”

So let’s think this through. We know God doesn’t change. God knew every day appointed for Hezekiah before he was born. He knew every word Hezekiah would say before he said it. So we have to say that God always knew that Hezekiah was going to pray and he always knew that he was going to grant his request.

So why go through the kabuki dance of telling Hezekiah that he would die? Let me make a suggestion that will be borne out not only in our discussion of the Lord’s prayer but as you study scripture: From the beginning, God determined to incorporate our prayers as a means by which he accomplishes his purposes.

It was always part of God’s plan for Hezekiah that he be healed of his sickness but the vehicle God determined to use to accomplish this unchanging plan was prayer. And he compelled Hezekiah to pray by revealing to him of what would happen without prayer. 

Follow me here. God’s omniscience means that he knows not only what will happen in fact, but also what could happen. He knows all the contingencies. So, for example, in 1 Sam 23, David asks God whether the people of a certain city will hand him over to Saul if he hides there. God says yes, they will. So David doesn’t hide there and disaster is averted. God knew what would and what could have happened. In the same way, God tells Hezekiah what would have happened: you’re going to die. Had Hezekiah had not prayed, he would’ve died. But God knew that revealing what could happen, would compel Hezekiah to pray and God had already determined to use Hezekiah’s prayer as the means to accomplish his healing. God held out a dire possibility to effect through prayer his purposed reality. Hezekiah didn’t change God’s plan. God used, and he had always intended to use, Hezekiah’s prayer to change the circumstances of Hezekiah’s life.

God has a plan for everyone in this room. He knows every day that has been written for you before it comes to pass. He has a will and a purpose for your life. Sometimes he makes it very clear, often he doesn’t and that’s the problem. I don’t know how some of things I’m anxious about this morning are going to work out. I don’t. But I do know that God has determined to use my prayers in his plan for my life. So when I’m anxious, when I want something or need something. When I’m in pain. When I feel like the world is crashing in on me. I pray. I take fear, worry, pain as a call to pray because it may very well be that God has decided to heal me or to heal a relationship or to bless a decision or to give me insight through my prayers.

That’s why God calls us to pray for other people—for lost people we know to come to faith, for sick people to be healed, for hurting people to be comforted, for hard hearts to change, for leaders to make wise decisions or to repent of wicked ones. We’re called to pray for all these things. Why? Because God has determined to use our prayers to effect his plan. We don’t know the plan but we know our prayers are part of it. And so we pray about everything.

So prayer is effective, not only does it change our understanding of God, as it did for Abraham, but God uses prayer to change our lives, as he did for Hezekiah, and to change the world.

Turn to Luke 11:2 and see the world changing prayer that Jesus calls his people to pray right there in the first line: “Father, hallowed be your name”

That is a request: Father may your name, your reputation, be seen as holy in all the world. May the entire world glorify your name. May everyone see your glory and bow down before you. May my friends and family and neighbors see your holiness and hold you in honor.

But, of course, we all know, we’re praying for something that God’s already promised to do. Psalm 89:9-10 “All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. [10] For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.”

That’s a promise. All the nations will glorify the name of God. That will happen finally and fully when Christ returns and all the earth is set under his feet and every knee will bow. And it will happen today, here and now, as more and more people hear and believe the good news that God sent his sent his Son to die in our place and rise from the dead to rescue a world in rebellion and to save all who trust in him. Both are promised in scripture. Jesus is coming back and all people and nations will see the glory of God and in the meantime, God will bring glory to himself through the salvation of sinners from all nations. So why pray for it? Because, as we’ve seen today, God has from eternity, determined that part of the way that he will carry out his plans and accomplish his promises on earth is by means of the prayers of his people. James 5:16, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

What a great and utterly undeserved honor that is. You and I are part of God’s being glorified on earth. We by our prayers effect God’s plan. Not because he needs us. He could do it without us, but he loves us so much that he has determined to do it through and with us.

Application and Prayer

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