Sermon
Powerful and Effective Prayer
January 8, 2006
Pastor Leighton Sheley

My grandpa was not only a wonderful preacher, but he was a great storyteller. He was born in the late 1800s. For young people that was before cell phones, that was before planes, that was before cars. Grandpa loved horses. He used to tell me about his surrey. If you ever seen the musical Oklahoma, you've been introduced to a surrey. In fact there's a song there, pretty little surrey with the fringe on the top. And he used to tell me about the advantages of taking his girl home in a horse-drawn surrey, for one thing the horse knew the way. The significance of that was lost upon me, I was so small at the time, but I have since figured out it goes something like this: since the horse knows the way, you put down the reigns, you put your arm around your girl, and you enjoy the stars in the sky. Please don't try that in your car.

One of grandpa's relatives owned a trucking company. Now when we think of trucking we think of 80,000 pound Freightliners and Peterbilts with air brakes and massive Turbo Cummins diesels and 13-speed Road Rangers and things like that, but that wasn't the kind of trucking that they did. If you were pulling a heavier weigh, you needed more horses, literally, horses.

And Grandpa told me about some of the special things...the relative was a specialist at taking stuff that other people wouldn't even try to take. And one of his clients was a lumber mill and occasionally the lumber mill would get special orders, and they would need to take these extremely tall trees, like the redwoods, sometimes over a hundred feet long, and fall them and take them from the mountains to the lumber mill. And so they would call on grandpa's relative to do that, and grandpa's relative was a specialist in this kind of thing. And some of these trees were very, very heavy and very, very long and so he would just add horses out in front by the dozens.

As they were coming around these mountain roads the lead horse would be so far out in front, that when you went around a corner you couldn't see; you couldn't see the lead horse and you couldn't see the corner, so the driver would have to know the road, so that the driver would know if there was a fork in the road around the corner and he could signal to the lead horse 'yee' or 'haw' to tell the lead horse whether he was supposed to turn left or right at the fork in the road. And there was a special relationship that happened between drivers and the lead horses like the mushers and the lead dogs on Iditarod.

So anyway, grandpa loved horses and he used to say something, he used to say, don't put the cart before the horse. Don't put the cart before the horse. It was one of those folk wisdom sayings from a bygone era like don't look a gift horse in the mouth. You know we don't always understand exactly what the wisdom is behind that statement, but it's passed from generation to generation. Now what it meant, don't put the cart before the horse, was that there were certain rules that needed to be observed in successfully hitching a horse to a cart. With the physics and limitations of the area, it was unwise to put the horse behind the cart. It was much smarter to put the horse up front where its strength and intelligence could be put to maximum use. Don't put the cart before the horse.

Well there are certain intelligent rules for effective prayer, and we as a congregation want to learn more how to pray effectively and intelligently. Now before we delve into a beginning of the study of effective prayer, let's briefly consider the importance of prayer. Prayer is essential to a healthy church. Healthy churches are filled with healthy believers. Healthy believers are believers who pray. Prayer is essential to each person's personal spiritual development. Show me a person who has experienced no spiritual growth, and I'll show you a person who has an effective or nonexistent prayer life. Prayer is effective for personal spiritual growth.

Now we're all born into sin. The Scriptures are clear and certain about this. Each of us is born into sin, sin regularly, have an appetite to sin, and in far too many cases are controlled by sin. Effective prayer overcomes sin's appetite. Effective prayer overcomes sin's control. Effective prayer destroys sinful spiritual strongholds. Effective prayer overcomes addictions, depression, guilt and despair. Effective prayer transforms lives, frees people from habitual sin, restores the soul, produces a real and lasting forgiveness, shrivels the root of bitterness, restores marriages and broken relationships, produces hope, joy, peace, it gives strength, restores health, produces courage, and clarity, eradicates double mindedness, it releases the miraculous power of God to do the impossible, and it brings glory to God.

Prayer is as important to a spiritual life as breathing is to physical life. If we go more than a few minutes without breathing we die. We breathe unceasingly. The Scriptures say we should pray unceasingly. Now if a creature is not breathing, it soon is powerless, and if a believer is not praying, we're soon powerless. If we're spiritually powerless, it's because we're not experiencing effective prayer.

Now if you think that you can't pray because you lack a passion for prayer, may I suggest that you have the cart before the horse? Instead of requiring passion to pray, pray for passion. Pray that God will give you a passion to pray.

Now sometimes we lack a passion to pray because we've never seen any benefit from it. It just doesn't seem to work for us. We've never seen or experienced answered prayer. And I have to confess to you I have no passion for fishing. It doesn't seem to work for me, except at a highly stocked trout farm. I have no desire to go to the bay with my pole and stick the line in the water, but you know some guys can't wait for it. They go through their day looking at the clock. They can't wait to clock out and hit the pier. And I have to admit these guys are wired very different than I. Then after they go to all that work to catch the fish, they pull the hook out of the mouth and throw it back. The logic of the exercise escapes me. What's the point?

Well sometimes we get discouraged because we haven't experienced answered prayer. We think what's the point? It doesn't work for us.

James wrote the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. The prayer of a righteous man IS powerful and effective. The Bible promises that prayer can be powerful and effective. Now if our prayer is not powerful and effective it's because we haven't learned how to do it right. According to Peter Wagner, a church growth consultant, the average pastor spends less than 30 minutes a day in prayer.

Bruce Demeris has concluded that on average the average Christian in America spends about five minutes a day in prayer, and the average pastor spends about seven minutes a day in prayer. Jonathan Graff reports that only about 5% or 1 out of 20 churches in America have a significant mobilize prayer ministry, and yet Jesus said My house shall be a house of prayer. Jesus did not say My house will be a house of programs. Jesus did not say My house will be house of preaching. Now it's not that there's anything wrong with great programs are great preaching, but if prayer is absent we've missed the main point. Prayer energizes programs and preaching.

Prayer invites the Holy Spirit to work through the programs and preaching. Prayer invigorates the participants of programs so that their labor is not a burden but rather a source of expectation, joy, and fulfillment. A Sunday school teacher who has been praying and preparing for his or her class all week, can hardly wait to see their students. A choir member who has been praying for God's presence in the sincere spirit of worship, can hardly wait for Sunday worship. A member of the congregation who has been praying all week for God to speak to them through the message, can hardly wait for Sunday's sermon. It's those who do not pray who look on the gathering of the saints as ho-hum, is another Sunday, I wonder what's on television.

Jesus said My house shall be a house of prayer. American churches struggle in the area of prayer, and the result is that American churches struggle in making a spiritual impact on American society. George Barna has noted that North America is the only continent in the world where the Christian Church is not growing. Now by the grace of God, Church of the Highlands is not contributing to the negative side of that statistic. God is at work in our midst, and yet we have an appetite to see God's power released in greater and greater ways that God may be glorified.

America's single greatest need is revival. Now some people think it's economic stimulus, others think it's a revision of the tax code or the justice system, others think that our woes are due to the deceit and the manipulation of the media, while all of these and so much more need improvement there is nothing that would contribute more to the benefit of our society than a true revival. In revival there is a grassroots groundswell desiring truth, justice, mercy, righteousness and goodness. America needs a revival. America's churches need a revival.

Now if you were to look at the revivals over the centuries that have occurred that have transformed societies and individuals, without exception, every revival began with prayer. Without exception, every revival began with prayer. Without effective prayer there can be no revival. Prayer is the key that is essential to revival.

Now culturally Americans have a tendency to evaluate rather than value. Americans have a tendency to evaluate sermons based on content or delivery rather than value God's truth contained therein. Now God spoke through His prophet Isaiah saying, 'For as the rain cometh down, watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return to me void.' God's Word will not return void.

Void means valueless. A voided check is valueless. God's Word is not valueless. When God's Word has been preached and someone says, I didn't get anything out of that sermon, it is a self-indictment against the listener not against the church or preacher. The listener may not have liked the preacher's style or content, but God's Word will not return void. It is not worthless. If God's Word is being preached then there is always value. We need to value far more often than evaluate.

Now there's little value in just listening. There is much greater value in doing, taking action based upon what you have heard. James writes: "Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it-he will be blessed in what he does."

You know if our personal goal is not to be changed by our study in God's Word, then this is merely an exercise, and ultimately a waste of time. I mean what is the point of looking in the mirror if you have no intention of making any adjustments or improvements? When you look into the mirror you look to see if there's a hair out of place, and if there is you pull out your comb or your brush and make an adjustment so that things are improved. If you have no intention of making any adjustments for improvement, then what's the point of looking in the mirror? The value of us looking into God's Word is to do so with the intention of making changes for improvement. God's Word promises that if a person does what God's Word says he will be blessed in what he does.

I'd like to give you a challenge, I'd like to challenge you right now to make a decision that in the weeks to come you're going to allow the truths from God's Word that are shared to transform you and your life instead of being just an exercise of gathering information. It's your decision to make and no one can make it for you.

But I'd also like to share with you a challenge of a greater dimension. You know across the globe revivals have occurred in many cities, but to our knowledge there has never been a revival in the San Francisco Bay Area. It's called the Barbary Coast for a reason. So here's the challenge, can you imagine...can you imagine being part of making history? Can you imagine? Can you imagine future Christian history books recording the first San Francisco Bay Area revival of A.D. 2006? Can you imagine?

Now someone pointed out earlier and said you know the last earthquake in San Francisco, the major one, was 1906. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a spiritual revival 100 years later? Can you imagine hundreds and thousands of souls being released from bondage and corruption? Can you imagine? Can you imagine men and women being released from homosexuality and pornography? Can you imagine? Can you imagine peace and joy in the heart of a child when mom and dad's marriage is restored? Can you imagine?

Can you imagine a San Francisco that's filled with God's love - not that false stuff - God's love, patience, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control? The fruit of the Spirit is released where the Spirit of God is released, and the Spirit of God is released where there is effective fervent prayer. Now we are here in the San Francisco Bay Area. God put us here. You might think that you're here by accident; you're not. God chose you to be in the place at this time. He put us here for a reason, and we have an opportunity to be a part of making history. Now the history books may never remember our names, but God will.

Revival begins with you, and it begins with me, each and every one of us. Now although it begins with each and every one of us, we can't do it alone, not as individuals, not as one church family, but God has already begun prompting hearts, opening eyes, creating vision, stirring passion and resolve. God's Spirit is moving. Let's not miss it. So what do you say? You say pastor I can see that vision. I want to be a part of it. I want to be a part of what God wants to do in the San Francisco Bay Area. Well let me say it won't be easy, it won't be easy. It won't come quickly. It will cost. It will be worth the cost. It will be worth the cost.

Now I'd like to invite you to take your Bibles and open to Luke chapter 11. This challenge is put up front as we begin our study because we need to understand the awesome importance of what we as a church family are giving attention to in the weeks to come, the importance of learning how to pray effectively. We don't want to put the cart before the horse. Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, and we can learn from what they learned.

We're at Luke chapter 11 and it reads, "Once when Jesus had been out praying, one of his disciples came to him as he finished and said, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." Now Jesus' ministry on earth was exceptionally short. It was only about three years, about 1000 days, and yet what He accomplished was profound. And of all of the characteristics that marked His life and impacted His disciples, it was only Jesus' prayer life that inspired the disciples to ask Him to teach them how to pray.

Now the Gospels report that Jesus habitually rose early in the morning often before daybreak to commune with His Father, and in the evening He would often times go to the Mount of Olives or some other quiet spot to pray, usually alone. The Bible teaches a great deal about the importance and power of prayer. Abraham's servant prayed and Rebecca appeared. Jacob wrestled and prayed, and Esau's mind was turned from 20 years of revenge. Moses prayed and Amalek was struck. Hanna prayed and Samuel was born. Isaiah and Hezekiah prayed and in 12 hours 185,000 Assyrians were slain. Elijah prayed and there were three years of drought, and he played again and rain came. And those are just but a small sampling of the prayers that were answered that are recorded for us in the Scriptures.

Prayer can be powerful. If Jesus needed to pray, we need to pray all the more.
"And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father..." Our Father - Jesus began by addressing His prayer to Father, and His choice of address is profound. Many people think that God is somewhere out there, fairly disinterested in us or our needs are our prayers or our lives. There's a misunderstanding that God is too busy and distracted trying to run the universe to be interested in hearing our prayer.

I had a wonderful, godly and gracious man from our congregation come to me once and say, pastor I need to apologize, I continued praying during communion when you had started praying. And I assured him that God could easily hear both of our prayers. God didn't have to choose one or the other. You see prayer is a direct person-to-person communication with our heavenly Father, and God is never overwhelmed by too many incoming prayers. Heaven's switchboard is never busy. God is a spirit; He is not limited to two ears. I can be praying, you can be praying, thousands of believers in the Bay Area can be praying, millions of believers around the globe can be praying, all simultaneous, and you have God's undivided attention. Unlike non-heavenly fathers, He doesn't get distracted. He's not too busy or too tired or disinterested in you.

Now Jesus could have said this is how we are to address our prayers, our Creator, or our God, or Supreme Being, but instead He said address your prayers our Father. A Creator God or Supreme Being can be disinterested in what you have to say, but not our heavenly Father. Jesus wanted us to know that our heavenly Father loves us beyond any comparison. I don't care how fine of a father you and I try to be, we cannot compare with how fine, how wonderful, how awesome, how good, how indescribable our heavenly Father is. Our heavenly Father is without comparison the best father ever, anywhere.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children..." And He hadn't described evil fathers, but if you being evil, by comparison every one of us is evil, compared to the heavenly Father. '...know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good gifts, good things, to them that ask Him!'

God is the model father, the perfect father, and He wants to provide for us abundantly. James said every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. God doesn't have a bad day. God doesn't say, well, I don't feel like giving you what you're asking for today. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God always wants to provide for us.

We don't pray to a supreme being, we pray to our heavenly Father who wants to give us good things if we will only ask Him. Now I want you to notice that Jesus didn't say to pray to Mary, or a saint, Jesus said to pray to our Father.

Now some people have been taught that they might have better success with their prayers if they are praying to someone other than the Father, but that's not what Jesus taught, and that's not what Jesus modeled. Jesus said when you address your prayer, address your prayer to Father. Now we are privileged to be able to pray to the Almighty God and address Him as Father. Only God's children can truly call Him Father.

So then who is a child of God? The apostle John says: but as many as received Him, Jesus Christ that is, to them He gave the right to become children of God. If you have received Jesus Christ then you are child of God. If you are a child of God then you can address God as Father.

Hallowed be thy name. The phrase reminds us that we are not to take our privilege of addressing the Creator of the universe flippantly or casually. God may have invited us to communed with Him, but God is still God, and God is to be honored as God. Now hallowed is an archaic English word that's used to translate a form of hagiazo, which is translated holy, saint, sanctify, sanctification, and so forth. To sanctify means to set apart as something special.

Now we all have lists that are filled with things and people that demand our affection and attention, and Jesus Christ should never be listed among them. He should be totally separate. Jesus Christ is not just another line item in our lives. He's not just a part of our lives. He should be the center of our lives, and the source of our life, and His glory the goal of our living.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. Now there are two ways of interpreting the application of this phrase. It could be a reference to Jesus returning to Earth to establish His earthly kingdom as described in the Book of Revelation, but it can also refer to Him establishing his throne in our lives. You know, so many of our prayers are self-centered. They are about us, our needs, OUR desires, our dreams, our comfort, our kingdom and we end up praying for God to bless our kingdom rather than recognizing that we are here to bless His kingdom.

In the garden Jesus prayed not My will, but Thine be done. It's not about us getting our way. It's about God getting His way with us. Now this could be one of the most challenging parts of the prayer to pray, and let me see if I can explain what I mean.

You know when I was a child I dreamed about getting locked up in Disneyland. I dreamed about being in Disneyland when they closed and everybody went home, but I was there and I had a few friends, and they somehow or other left the lights on and the rides running. Space Mountain no waiting. Matterhorn, don't give that abominable snowman an ounce of sleep that night. Let's see if we can make him cranky in the morning. I used to dream about being locked up inside of Disneyland.

You know some of us are locked up in habitual sins that are pleasant. Some of us are...we know that the activity is not pleasing to God, but we really don't want to leave because we're really quite enjoying ourselves. We're not bound by anything other than our desire to put our desire first. And if we're going to pray this prayer and we're going to ask God's kingdom to come, then God's desires have to take priority over our desires. Now that means we may need to ask God to give us the desire to change our desires.

Now some of us don't really want God to come back and establish His earthly kingdom too soon because that would spoil our plans. I remember as a young teenager at church hearing about Jesus could come back anytime, and I started praying fervently that He wouldn't, because I wanted to get married first. And if He came back too soon He'd spoil my plans. Thy kingdom come now, Thy will be done now.

Praying effectively means changing from my will be done, to Thy will be done.

As in heaven, so on earth. Have you ever thought about how quick God's will is done in heaven? Instantaneously.

Give us this day our daily bread. Now Americans tend to gloss over this phrase because we're in the land of plenty and it's very rare when we go to bed hungry, if it's not by choice. But this phrase is not insignificant to the believers, the Christian believers who live in Africa and are suffering under famine. When we pray this part of the prayer we acknowledge that God is the source of our every need. We are confessing are dependent upon Him.

Now Americans tend to be very independent. It's part of our culture. Our culture has placed a high value on the ability of an individual to pull them self up by their bootstraps, and sometimes that cultural heritage can influence our spiritual perspectives and we can think that we are the source of all of our needs. The reality is that even if we work for everything we possess, the physical strength and the soundness of mind to perform our duties come from God. So when we pray this part we are confessing that we are dependent upon God for everything. And the fact that we are asking daily for our daily bread indicates that our prayer should be daily.

Now Jesus doesn't specify any posture. He doesn't say there are four postures described in prayer; standing, sitting, kneeling, and prostrate. And he doesn't specify any particular posture. He doesn't specify any particular location, but our prayers should take place every day, not just in church on Sunday.

And forgive us our sins just as we forgive those who have sinned against us. We can only ask God's forgiveness if we are willing to forgive others. That's a current theme throughout Jesus' teaching and preaching, in fact, He reinforces it after the Lord's prayer in Matthew. And Jesus talked about the parable of the unforgiving servant, and in so many places it reinforces that if we're going to really experience God's forgiveness, we have to be willing to forgive others.

Now there are five words in the New Testament that can be translated sin. Matthew has a parallel passage of the Lord's prayer in Matthew chapter 6 and there he uses opheilema, which is translated debt, and here in Luke chapter 11 Luke uses the word hamartia, translated trespasses.

Now there are two versions of the spoken Lord's prayer. Some of us have been taught to pray, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, others have been taught, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Somebody once asked me, which one is right? And the answer is, both are. They are both biblically accurate and correct.

The true Christian does not see God's promise of forgiveness as a license to sin, but rather as an opportunity to grow spiritually, and we will never fully experience God's forgiveness if we are unwilling to forgive others.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. You know Satan is a cunning adversary, and the only way that we can live a life that's pleasing to God is with God's constant guidance and protection. We need to continually, daily be praying: God protect me from sinning against You. Now it's when we think that we can do it on our own that we are most vulnerable to the crafty schemes of the devil. You know the devil has been at it a long time and he has honed his skills in dealing with mankind. His time is limited and he has nothing to lose. He's going for broke. He's going to do everything he can to tempt believers into failure, and when he succeeds at tripping up a believer, he injures their testimony and their effectiveness. He may also cause a schism or division and their relationship with the heavenly Father.

Anything that causes shame or division brings satisfaction to the devil. As believers we don't want to bring any satisfaction to the devil. We want to bring satisfaction to the Lord. We don't want to stumble, but in order to fulfill that we need to daily ask God's guidance and protection. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Now prayer was the priority for Jesus and it must be for each and every one of us if we are to fulfill the purpose for which we were created and redeemed. Prayer is more effective when we pray to our Father, knowing that He is the best father, that He is interested in hearing our prayer, and when we pray not my will, but Thine be done.

I'd like to invite you to stand. Now as I mentioned earlier, there are two spoken versions, one saying forgive us our debts the other forgive us our trespasses, and customarily here at the church we tend to lean towards forgive us our debts, but this morning I would like us to pray together and I would like us to use the version, forgive us our trespasses.

This will be our closing prayer together, shall we pray?

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. And amen, God bless you. God be with you.