Bromley Baptist Church – Sunday evening 9th October 2005

Prayer (3) – What does prayer do? Reading Matthew 7:7-10

What does prayer do?

In this matter of prayer I’ve got more questions these days than I have answers.

I guess we can all point to a few prayers that were answered. But I bet you can’t say why.

And I guess the reverse is true—prayers that didn’t seem to have been answered—why?

So—What does prayer do?

I find ‘prayer changes things’ a difficult claim—as though prayer was a force that, in and of itself, had it’s effect. A TV news item featured a technique of laying on of hands which claims physical and emotional renewal. Pictures of Tutankhamen etc on the wall seemed to assist.

Is prayer like that?

If it is then we have to get the technique right but worse—suppose we get it wrong - something bad may happen—what a terrible responsibility!

· Perhaps we have to use the right words

· or say them in the right way

· or have them backed with the right thought forms

· or be in the right environment

· or right posture

· or right number of people

· or….

- a magic formula which is done right to achieve it’s desired ends.

Is that prayer?

So to repeat … What does prayer do? - I say ‘nothing’ - ‘nothing in and of itself’!

If anything ‘changes’ if anything happens following prayer it is because God did it—not that our prayer ‘did it and not because we twist God’s arm, manipulate him

So Does Prayer do anything?

C19 contest between prayer & science – the church didn’t take the challenge.

A similar test however recently in Kansas City deduced that patients prayed for during the trial scored on average 11% better than those not prayed for. Tough on the 50% not prayed for that God didn’t help them as much because they were put in the wrong group!

A problem with prayer.

Not so much with answered prayer as unanswered prayer

Philip Yancey writes Disappointment with God’ - he meets people who feel God hasn’t been fair because life hasn’t been fair. Esp. Richard who had been at theological college with Philip. His faith had been shattered by unanswered prayer. And I don’t blame him!

So what does prayer do?

1. it does something to me.

If I truly pray for holiness or humility …If I pray for someone who has been spiteful to me …If I pray for those in need God will make me increasingly aware of the need and I may be conscious of a call to be the answer to my own prayer.

You cannot pray effectively without the willingness to also be changed or used by God

Brother Andrew at 87(?) "if God gives you a burden and you're ready to obey God always opens the door". . - become a friend of terrorists - "what do you expect them to be - my enemy?" (Mike Pilavachi 19/9/03)

2. it changes those around you.

It is being salt and light in the sitn that God will bring change about. Graham Dodd – accredited BU minister in 2004 - had been a burglar - many break ins. among them a Christian couple who prayed for him from when he went in prison and opened their home to him when he came out. That’s not to make prayer into therapy—When God is brought into the relationship things take place that would never happen without him.

3. Does prayer change God?

Are we suggesting that our prayers really will change God’s mind? ...His will? ...His purposes?

King Solomon met the same kind of question.

He built the temple where God would meet the people. Then he asks ‘Hang on! Will God really dwell on earth? the heavens cannot contain you—How much less this temple!’

We come and pray and then say ‘Hang on! - will God really notice us? Will he really hear and answer? His purposes span the universe—Why on earth should God change things for us?

I don’t want to philosophise and speculate all evening. But I do want to re-affirm the fact that—yes, Solomon—God really came to dwell on earth! And live the life of a true person, and suffer and experience apparently unanswered prayer ‘If it be your will let this cup pass from me’.

God really does take notice and does something in answer to our prayers.

1. He’s promised it

James 5:16 The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. He goes on to cite the case of Elijah

1 Peter 3:12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, The he addresses the problem of who are these righteous? - He reminds us that Christ died for the unrighteous to bring us to God—so that’s His children! We actually have access to God and He is attentive to our prayers. RT Kendal’s phrase was that ‘God is on our case’.

He’s promised the effect of Christians praying together…

Matt 18:19 "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.

Study John 14, 15, 16 he promises that if they ask anything in His name He will do it!

we come to our holy father through His son Jesus—not because we’ve got it right ourselves.

Matt 7:7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 .9 "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

It’s all based—not on me getting it right—but me coming humbly to my father and asking!

2. And there are the examples we’ve known…

· Archbishop William Temple—’When I pray coincidences happen, when I stop praying coincidences stop happening.’

· 'she must have been doing some industrial-strength praying' - rescued drug addict of his mother.

· Jennifer Rees Larcombe. Eventually the prayer of someone who had been a Christian only a year and who says ’I wouldn’t be able to pray for you properly—I’m not the right kind of person to do it’ and when she prayed no-one else around really expected anything to happen. Undoubtedly God answered that prayer.

Rev Dr Billy Kim, Pres – World Baptist Alliance. “Prayer does not need proof, it needs practice. Today, we organise instead of agonise on our knees before God.”

Despite my questions I still pray. The reason is that though I don’t have the answers Jesus is the answer to prayer! He has told me to pray and has told me that my prayers are heard.

Be careful—God may answer your prayers…

Kathy & I prayed the Methodist covenant prayer in our marriage service back in 1970.

We are not our own, O Lord, but yours. Put us to what you will, rank us with whom you will. Put us to doing, put us to suffering. Let us be used for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you. Let us be full, let us be empty. Let us have all things, let us have nothing. We freely and heartily give back all things to you. You are ours and we are yours, through Jesus Christ. Amen

And you know what—he’s answered that prayer in just about every phrase.

Join us on Saturday next on our day of prayer