Learning How to Pray

One day a Baptist minister decided to go to the horse races. The Pastor loved horses, but being a good Christian, he didn’t believe in gambling. Before the first race, he noticed a priest down in the paddock area praying over a horse.

When they ran the first race, lo and behold, that horse came in first. The minister kept his eye on the priest. In the next three races, to his astonishment, each horse that the priest prayed over won the next race.

Well this kind of temptation was too much for the pastor. He took all the cash he had with him and bet on the horse that the priest prayed over for the next race. He figured that this couldn’t be gambling; it was a sure thing. But to his utter dismay, in the next race, his horse got off to a shaky start, staggered a few yards down the track, and dropped dead !

The pastor was flabbergasted! He went down to the paddock, found the priest, introduced himself, and said, “Look here padre, I want an explanation from you. Each of the first four horses you prayed over won the race, so I bet everything I had on the fifth one. You prayed over him and he dropped dead. How come?

The priest just smiled and shook his head and said, “The trouble with you Baptists is that you don’t know the difference between prayer and the last rites.”

Well for some Christians, prayer is like the last rites - something we do when all else fails and we’re dangling by our fingernails on the edge of disaster.

Our passage for today in 1 John 5 is all about prayer. It is about…

1. the assurance of prayer

2. answers to prayer

3. the application of prayer.

John’s readers needed to know that when they prayed, God was listening. And they needed to know that when they prayed, God would answer. And they needed to know that their prayers would be effective.

And you know something? We need to be sure of all those things too. Because there’s nothing more mysterious in the Christian life than prayer. Many Christians don’t pray very much because they’re really not convinced that it works. So John’s going to address that. Let’s look at…

1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

I have a little black box sitting beside my computer at home. It’s called a “modem”. What this little box does is to translate the electronic information that I type on my computer into little bits of sound. It can send those little bits of sound over the telephone lines to other computers.

My brother Dave lives in Ottawa, Canada. He also has a modem beside his computer. We send each other messages almost every day. That’s called E-Mail, and it’s a lot faster than regular mail and a lot cheaper than a long distance call.

My brother travels a lot. He serves on the Canadian delegation to GATT, the UN agency that, among other things, sets standards for the telecommunications industry worldwide. No matter where he is in the world, I can talk to him over the computer.

When I send a message to Dave, I get a confirmation on my computer screen which says: Message posted: date, time. And when he turns on his computer, he’ll get a notice that says he has E-Mail from me waiting to be read.

Wouldn’t it be great if prayer worked liked that? Wouldn’t it be great to have confirmation that our prayers arrived in heaven and were right there on God’s computer screen for him to read? Well I have news for you. Prayer does work like that. There is a way that we can be sure that God gets our messages. It is in verse 14:

1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

What’s the key to having God hear our prayers? It is to pray according to God’s will. When you pray according to God’s will, you can be absolutely certain that He hears you. And the idea behind that word to “hear” is really “to receive”. He receives your prayer.

This is the most important lesson we need to learn about prayer because most people totally misconceive what prayer is all about.

Larry Brown hosts a program of contemporary Christian music every Sunday morning from 7 - 9:00 a.m. on 99.9 FM. Now and then, Larry will take requests. You phone in and ask him to play your song. And he’ll make note of it, and go home and look through his extensive collection of CD’s, find the song, and the next Sunday, he’ll play it.

A lot of people think that prayer works like that. They think that God invented prayer as a sort of request line. You phone in your request, and sooner or later, God will get around to playing it.

A little boy in his pajamas was ready for bed. He interrupted a family gathering in the living room and said “I’m going up to say my prayers now. Anybody want anything?”

That is the popular view of prayer. And it is totally wrong. Prayer is not about getting what we want, it is about getting what God wants. The purpose of prayer is not to get our will done in heaven, but to get God’s will done here on earth. What God wants is the most important thing about prayer, because what God wants is perfect. It’s the best. And prayer is the means by which we lay hold of it.

George Muller of Bristol was a man of God who knew a lot about prayer. He always sought to pray according to God’s will. He said “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance, it is laying hold of His willingness.”

When we pray, we better make sure that we’re laying hold of God’s will. Otherwise, he’s just going to ignore our prayers, because we’re praying for less than the best.

Well you’re probably sitting there saying “Okay but how do I know what God’s will is? How do I know what I should pray about?” Good question.

Ask the same question about obedience: How do I know what God wants me to do with my life? How do I know what He wants me to obey? Well, it’s in the Bible, isn’t it? The Bible is where God reveals His will to us.

Now apply that to prayer. Pray like you obey. Use the Bible as your prayer book. If you want to be sure that you’re praying according to God’s will, pray what’s in the Bible.

What do I mean “Pray what’s in the Bible?” Does God want us to just read the Bible back to him in prayer? Well, not exactly, but you’re getting close!

The Bible reveals the will of God for all of us. Oh, it doesn’t reveal what specific kind of car you should buy, or what university you should apply to. It doesn’t reveal specific things like that. But God gives us general principles, which we’re supposed to apply to specific situations. So how does that affect your prayer life? Well, let’s look at a couple of examples:

Men, the Bible says to us husbands that we should love our wives like Christ loved the church. So how does that affect your prayer life? Well, we should be praying that God would help us to be gentle and loving with our wives, with a tender concern for their well-being, just like Christ loved the church. But make your prayer practical and specific.

Help me to remember to take out the trash. Help me to remember to clear the dishes. Help me to offer to mind the kids so that she can spend some time alone. Next time I go to sit down in the living room and put my feet up to read the newspaper, help me to ask: “Could I be doing something that would benefit my wife instead?”.

And if we pray like that, then we’ll be praying according to God’s will. And if we pray according to God’s will, then we know that He hears us.

Take another example. The Bible says that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. So maybe there’s somebody at your work or in your neighborhood or even here at the church who just rubs you the wrong way and drives you crazy. What are you supposed to do?

Well you’re supposed to start praying for that person. Pray for their salvation. Pray that God would bless them. Pray that God would heal the hurt in their life that’s making them such a miserable character. And you’re supposed to start loving them. Notice the Bible says “love them” not “avoid them”. You can’t love someone if you’re avoiding them.

And if you pray that God would help you to do that, then you’ll be praying according to God’s will. And those are the kinds of prayers that God hears. Because you’re praying for what He wants, not for what you want.

The Bible says that if we pray according to God’s will he hears us. That’s the key.

1 John 5:15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

Do you know what this verse is saying? This verse is saying that God has committed himself to providing you with whatever you ask for in His will. God will answer the prayers you pray according to His will.

But what about unanswered prayer? You’ve been praying about something for a long time, and you’re sure it’s God’s will, but you haven’t gotten what you asked for. Let’s think about that for a minute.

Suppose my son Michael, who is four years old, comes up to me after church and asks me for the keys to the car so that he can drive home. Now his reasoning might be “Well, Daddy wants me to grow up and be a big boy. And big boys like Josh and Jamie drive cars, so this will show my Daddy that I’m a big boy, too.”

Do you think I would give Michael the keys? Would I be a loving father if I did? You see, I know what’s best for him, and because I do, I can’t let him have his request. I know he’s not ready yet to have the keys to the car. Even though it is ultimately my will that he drive a car, it isn’t the right time yet. He’s got a lot of growing up to do before he’ll be ready.

Unanswered prayer means one of two things: either you’re asking for something that God doesn’t want you to have, because it’s not according to his will. Or, you’re asking for something you’re not ready to have, because you still have some spiritual growing up to do.

God often delays answering our prayers so that He can deepen our character, and build our maturity. He makes us wait, because he knows that the waiting will be good for us.

Do you have enough faith to thank him for making you wait?

Well, we’ve looked at assurance in prayer and answers to prayer, let’s look at the application of prayer.

1 John 5:16-17 If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that he should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.

These are two of the most difficult verses in the Bible to understand. What is this “sin that leads to death?” Is John referring here to the fact that sometimes Christians sin so grievously that God takes their lives? That does happen, you know.

Remember Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5? They lied to the church and to the Holy Spirit about a donation they were making and God called both of them home. They dropped dead on the spot. And then there’s the passage in 1 Corinthians 11 where Paul told the Corinthians that because they had abused the Lord’s supper, observing it in a careless and sinful way, “…many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.”

But that’s not the kind of sin that John is talking about here. John is referring to non-Christians here, because the death that he’s referring to is spiritual death - being cut off from God.

Notice that he says that it is your brother - in other words, a fellow believer - who may commit a sin that does not lead to death. We Christians can and do sin. But that sin does not cut us off from God. Our fellowship with God may be broken, but our relationship with God can never be broken.

The Prodigal Son didn’t stop being his father’s son even though he was a prodigal and living in a far country. There was still relationship, even though there was no fellowship.

John says “when you see your brother sin, you must pray for him, and God will bring him back, and restore him.” He’s like a swimmer who is drowning and needs to be rescued. Prayer is how you throw him a rope.

But notice that John is very careful with his language when he talks about the sin unto death. He says “There is a sin that leads to death.” Notice that he doesn’t say “When you see your brother commit a sin that leads to death.” He just says “There is a sin that leads to death.”

But genuine, born-again Christians are not the ones who commit that sin, because of what that sin is.

Remember, we have to understand this verse in the context of this whole epistle. John has been writing to Christians who have been plagued by false teachers. Those false teachers started out in the church, although most of them had left by the time John wrote this.

They had been masquerading as Christians; pretending to be Christians, even though they were teaching untruths about who Jesus was. Those are the people John is referring to who had committed this sin that leads to death.

Their sin was that they had rejected Christ, actively and willingly. They had given themselves over to anything and everything that would oppose the truth about him. Their doctrine was false and their lives were wicked.

And John says here, “I am not saying you should pray for these people.” God has given such people over to their wickedness, and they are beyond hope because they have chosen to reject and oppose the only one who can save them, Jesus Christ.

You see, they are more than just non-Christians. We’re supposed to pray for the salvation of non-Christians. But these people are different. They are anti-christs. John says (2:18) that many antichrists have come. These are the false teachers who actively oppose and reject the person and work of Christ.

These are the people who commit the unpardonable sin: they turn their backs on Jesus Christ, willfully and knowingly. And John says “You don’t need to pray for them. But pray for your brother when he sins, because His sin is not unto death.”

God calls us to be concerned about the spiritual well-being of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Yet much of the time, I fear that we exercise little concern at all, or at best, our concern comes in the form of concern for their physical well-being.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that we shouldn’t pray about one another’s physical ills. But if that’s all we ever do - if our prayer requests sound more like hospital medical bulletins, then we’re not praying the way God wants us to.

We’ve got to be praying for that family in the church whose teenage son is rebelling against the Lord. We’ve got to be interceding for the husband who’s thinking of walking out on his wife. We’ve got to be praying for the two church members who just can’t seem to get along with each other. We’ve got to be praying for our sins, not just our sicknesses.

We hesitate to pray about things like that because we think it is none of our business. But it is our business. God says it is. We are a body - the Body of Christ - and when one part of the body hurts, we all hurt.

Imagine if you cut your hand and your foot said “Well I’m not going to walk that hand over to the First Aid Kit because it isn’t any of my business!” Of course it’s his business! He’s part of the body.

We’ve got to pray for each other when we sin, for this is praying according to God’s will.

Another reason we’ve got to pray for each other when we sin is that it keeps us from preying on each other. Oswald Chambers observed that Christians often notice where other Christians are failing, and then take that God-given discernment and turn it into ridicule and criticism, instead of turning it into intercession on their behalf.

We need to pray for each other’s sins, because it’s pretty hard to be critical and fault-finding and negative about your fellow Christians when you’re praying for them.

When John was looking for an application of how to pray according to God’s will, the Holy Spirit led him to this subject. Pray for your brother when he sins. He needs you to. The church needs you to. You need to. And God wants you to. And God answers those prayers.

1. assurance of prayer

2. answers to prayer

3. application of prayer