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Availing Prayer (CCTroy)
Lindsey Gardner on November 20, 2024
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Availing Prayer (King’s Cross)

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THE TEXT

16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit (James 5:16–18). 

WHAT KIND OF PRAYER AVAILS MUCH?

  1. Effective, fervent
  2. Righteous

WHY THE EXAMPLE OF ELIJAH? (1 KINGS 17–18)

  1. He was a righteous man, “with a nature like ours”
  2. He prayed earnestly

CONCLUDING APPLICATIONS

  1. Be encouraged to pray, not discouraged. If you are seeking to live a godly life through the power of the Holy Spirit, then you have God’s attention. 
  2. Recognize where you pray already, and do so earnestly and with renewed faith.
  3. Take practical steps to cultivate additional times of focused prayer—because God is faithful and kind.

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Anxiety & Thanksgiving (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

We live in a world full of anxiety and stress. And far too often, Christians default to unbelieving assumptions, diagnosing their problems as circumstances, environment, diet, or chemicals. While sometimes material changes can help, God’s Word says our central need is Christ. In Him is a peace that passes all understanding, a peace that is a fortress for our hearts and minds. 

The Text: “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing…” (Phil. 4:

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

As Paul brings this letter in for a landing, he exhorts the Philippians to stand fast in the Lord and to be likeminded (Phil. 4:1-2), which leads to a series of four commands and a promise, with a final exhortation for doing so. The first command is a doubled: rejoice in the Lord always, and again, rejoice (Phil. 4:4). Obedience to that command goes a long way toward making your gentleness obvious to everyone around you (including your kids), which is the next command, but the foundation of that gentleness is the presence of the Lord: the Lord is near (Phil. 4:5). The third command is to be anxious for nothing (Phil. 4:6), which is greatly assisted by obeying the fourth command: to bring your requests to God with thanksgiving (Phil. 4:6). Obedience to all of these commands brings with it the promise that the peace of God will be an impenetrable castle around your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:7). And Christians practice that joy and peace by meditating on all the true, lovely, and virtuous things (Phil. 4:8).

LAW & GOSPEL

Before talking about these commands in particular, we need to talk about what we should think about biblical commands in general first. There are two fundamentally different approaches to God’s law and commands. One approach says that if you obey God’s law, you can achieve righteousness, and be accepted by God. The other approach says that you cannot obey the law perfectly, and therefore you can only be accepted by God through Christ’s perfect obedience for you (Phil. 3:9, Gal. 3:10-13). The Bible says that the second understanding is correct: even if you obeyed most of the law but disobeyed at one point, you have broken the whole law (Js. 2:10). This is because breaking God’s law is personal defiance of the living God, and the same God who said not to steal, also said not to commit sexual immorality and not to lie (Js. 2:11). 

So those who insist on trying to keep the law to achieve their own righteousness will be condemned by the law, but those who trust in Jesus Christ, are released from the demands of the law and accepted by God (Rom. 8:1). Christ is accepted in their place both as perfectly righteous and obedient and as the One who receives the penalty that we deserved for our disobedience (Rom. 8:2-3). And those who trust in Christ for all of this also receive His Holy Spirit who begins to work in us the power and desire to obey (Rom. 8:4-5). These two paths are called “works righteousness” and the “righteousness of faith.” Works righteousness is a treadmill of despair, but the righteousness of faith is God’s escalator carrying you to glory. 

REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS

It’s important to begin with those two paths because if you are on the “works righteousness” treadmill, “rejoicing always” will seem like an impossible task. Then add “let your gentleness be known to all men” and “be anxious for nothing,” and it’s like somebody keeps dropping bricks into your backpack and pretty soon you might be ready to let something else be known to all men. Nobody rejoices always, much less is anyone ever gentle to everyone or never anxious about anything. These commands, like all the commands in Scripture, can only be received in one of two ways: either as raw law (“do this and live or fail and die”) or else as the righteousness received by faith alone (“Christ has done this for me, and His Spirit will work this in me”). One is a “got to,” and the other is a “get to.” One is the burden of a continual threat and a whip; the other is the grateful response to incredibly good news. The demand of the law condemns every infraction, but the righteousness of faith is first of all the announcement, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). And what is the believing response to that verdict from God the Judge? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound! Hallelujah, what a Savior! What’s the response? Rejoicing. Rejoicing in the Lord always. And when that saving God is near, God’s kindness and gentleness cannot help but be known to all men. All anxiety fades away.   

PRAYER WITH THANKSGIVING

Being accepted by God for the sake of Christ is the foundation of an anxiety-free life. But God gives two additional tools here for fighting anxiety: thanksgiving and petition. The first step is thanksgiving. We are to make our petitions known to God with thanksgiving (Phi. 4:6). Sometimes prayers are just worrying in front of God, but thanksgiving is the God-ordained package we are to deliver our petitions in. Gratitude is what prepares us to actually present our requests. So whatever the trouble, whatever the worry, begin by thanking God for it. The same God who sent His only Son for you has allowed this trouble, this challenge in your life for your good. So thank Him. And then having honestly thanked God for the hardship, ask Him to take it, ask Him to deliver you, ask Him to change it. Present your request. 

Christians are not people who do not notice problems or dangers. Christians are people who know what to do with all of those cares: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Pet. 5:6-7). In a strange irony, anxious people are actually being supremely arrogant. Anxious people insist on carrying their own burdens and refuse to cast them on the Lord. But your hand is not mighty enough; that’s why you’re so stressed out. That’s why your gentleness is not known to all men. But God’s hand is mighty; He can handle your cares and He cares for you like no one else. And the promise is that when you pray like this, God’s peace that passes all understanding will stand guard at your heart and mind in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:7).

CONCLUSION: MAKE A LIST

The final exhortation is to make a list, to count, to log all the true things, all the honest things, all the just, pure, lovely, praiseworthy, and virtuous things. This is biblical therapy, if you like. How do you break bad habits of worry, or bad habits of any disobedient thoughts? Make a list of what to think about: beautiful things, true things, just things, praiseworthy things: the air in your lungs, refreshing water, sunrises and sunsets, chocolate, Psalms, good jokes, forgiveness.

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Mistaken Faithful Prayer

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INTRODUCTION

As many of you know, it is our custom to have a “state of the church” message around the beginning of each new year, and that message will be coming next week. But, if you like, you may consider this message to a preamble to that state of the church sermon. How so?

The year behind us, 2020, has been quite a year, and it may have occurred to some of you that when 20 turns 21, it might start drinking, and then what shall we do? Of course, we shall pray about it, but there is a particular kind of prayer that we need to understand in times like these.

THE TEXT

“And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:1–8)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

This parable goes by various names. For some, it is the parable of the unjust judge. For others, it is called the parable of the importunate widow, or perhaps the persistent widow. With this parable, Jesus gives us the meaning of it right at the front end. He told the parable to a particular purpose, which is that men ought to pray constantly and not to get discouraged (v. 1). In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God, and he did not have any regard for man (v. 2). We should start paying attention at this point because we have that kind of judge in our time, believe it or not. Now there was a widow in that same city who wanted to have her case heard against her adversary (v. 3). She wanted to have the judge grant the justice of her case. For a time, this godless judge just put her off, but after a bit he changed his mind. He acknowledged to himself that even though he did not fear God or regard man (v. 4), he was still able to determine that this widow was going to be a royal pain in the neck (v. 5). The only way he was going to get rid of her was through doing some justice, however little it suited him. And Jesus says that we should pay attention to the lesson of this unjust judge (v. 6). How is it possible that God will not grant justice to His own elect, those who cry to Him day and night, even though He puts them off for a time (v. 7)? This is a “how much more” argument. God will vindicate them later, and when it happens it will happen suddenly (v. 8). God loves the eucatastrophe. But at the same time, why might the Son of man not find faith on the earth when He comes? It would be because the lesson of this parable had not been learned, and people, in the position of that widow, quit coming.

THE NATURE OF PERSISTENCE

Now one of the things we need to do is look straight at this parable, contemplating what Jesus is actually calling us to do. He is actually calling us to be wrong in our prayers, and to be wrong most of the time.

Suppose you have a trouble, and coming out of this last year, who doesn’t? And suppose this trouble weighs on you heavily, and it has come to the point where you are bringing it before the Lord daily. It could be a health problem, or a financial challenge, or a wayward child, or the caliber of the people running our civilization. It weighs on you, and so as required, you bring it to God. To illustrate, suppose you are praying for a significant amount of money, and it is not so that you might spend it on various fripperies. It is a real need. Let us say you bring it before the Lord daily, as this parable requires, and you do so for years.

This means that every day, you believe that today would be a wonderful time for this needed deliverance to appear. You wouldn’t be praying about it if you didn’t feel that way. But every new day that you pray about it, the repetition entails a recognition that your assessment of the situation yesterday was wrong. That wasn’t the best day for the deliverance. Not only were you wrong, but it was an error that the Lord Jesus—by requiring your persistence in this kind of prayer—required you to make. So Jesus wants us to be obediently mistaken.

EMBODIED LIFE IN TIME            

Perhaps some of you women who are mothers know what this is like. Those who just identify as women have no idea. But perhaps you have had this experience. You are six months along, and some well-meaning stranger asks you what it feels like to be past due. You feel like you are, and it is also apparently the case that you look like you are. In this scenario, you know that it is not time yet. But suppose that you were the first woman ever to give birth, and so nobody knew how long a pregnancy was supposed to go. Now pray about it. That is what delayed answer to prayer is like. The gestation times for answered prayer vary considerably.

But when the answer comes, it comes suddenly. It comes in a rush. Is this not what the Lord explicitly says? He will “avenge them speedily” (v. 8).

ON THE MOUNT OF THE LORD

God wants us to walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). We are to live our lives walking in the will of God, but this is not the same thing as living off a pre-printed agenda. Once in a blue moon God directs His servants explicitly and in unmistakable ways. But most of the time, we are to simply trust Him. Our lives are a mist (Jas. 4:14). We are a wispy bit of fog off the river that you sometimes drive by, and in a moment it is gone.

We should have the humility befitting small wisps of fog, and so we should pray in the way we are instructed to pray. Not only will God answer us suddenly when He answers, but He loves to do it at the moment when we believe that all is lost. He waits until Abraham has the knife upraised over his son. On the mount of the Lord it will be provided (Gen. 22:14). God waited until the Israelites were close enough to the Red Sea to get their sandals wet in it before He told Moses to extend his rod. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord (Ex. 14:13). Jehoshaphat was told the same thing. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord (2 Chron. 20:17).

So we can be confident that there is one thing that the misbegotten year 2020 did not do, and that was to shorten the arm of Jehovah (Num. 11:23).

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Psalm 116: The Grace of Answered Prayer

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Introduction

This psalm is a wonderful testimony of praise, giving glory to God for all the things He did to undertake for the psalmist. The Lord delivered him from grievous trouble, and he is not at all ambiguous about the fact that God is the one who did it. But in order to give thanks this way, we have to adjust some of our modernist assumptions about interpreting the events of history. In his penetrating book about the theological crisis that resulted from the American Civil War, Mark Noll astutely pointed out the fact that the war badly rattled American faith in the intelligibility of God’s governance of the world. Both sides were praying to Him, were they not? And every retreated into the assumption that God’s ways are always and necessarily inscrutable. But how then can we pray as the psalmist does here?

The Text

“I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live . . .” (Ps. 116:1-19).

Summary of the Text

The psalm begins with a profession of love for the Lord, because He listens to prayers (v. 1). He inclined His ear to me, and that is why I call upon Him (v. 2). As long as I live. The psalmist has been in deep trouble before, down to the point of death (v. 3). That is when I called upon His name (v. 4). God is gracious, righteous, and merciful (v. 5). God preserves the simple, and it is a good thing too (v. 6). He helped when I was brought low. Calm down, soul, because God is bountiful (v. 7). God has delivered me in three ways—my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling (v. 8). I am going to walk around this place alive, and in the presence of the Lord (v. 9). Paul quotes this next verse in 2 Cor. 4:13, and does so from a similar context. I believed, and therefore I have spoken (v. 10).

I said, too hastily, that all men are liars (v. 11). This appears to have something to do with men who were the instruments of the answered prayer. When I was in trouble I lashed out at men, but then God used men to deliver. How shall I pay the Lord back for all His benefits (v. 12)? I will take the cup of salvation, and then raise the glass (v. 13). The vows that I promised when I was in trouble are vows that I will pay in the presence of all God’s saints (v. 14). As we saw earlier, God delivered me from death, but here it says that the death of His saints is precious to Him (v. 15). He loves bringing us home. In other words, it would have been an answer to prayer either way. God’s slaves are the ones for whom God has loosed the bonds (v. 16). The sacrifice of thanksgiving is the only way to pay Him back, and so we call on His name (v. 17). Again the vows that were promised will be vows paid—in the presence of all His people (v. 18). Thanksgiving for answered prayer will be offered in the courts of the Lord’s house (v. 19). Hallelujah.

Two Different Moments

When He was praying in the Garden, our Lord Jesus modeled for us what true submission looks like. “And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39). And the apostle Paul prayed three times for his thorn in the flesh to be removed, and was three times denied (2 Cor. 12:8-9).

But then there is this . . .

“And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13–14). “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24).

Now what many Reformed (non-charismatic) believers do is this. They treat this as though one passage can cancel the other one out, and they retreat to the (very emotionally safe) position of “not my will, but thine” be done. And thus they settle into a life of never asking God for anything specific. And when forced into asking for something specific, as when a loved one gets really sick, they spend all their time internally braced for the inevitable nothat they know must be coming.

These passages are addressing two different kinds of situation. The former is when God wants us to be content, and to be resigned to His will. The latter is when He wants us to engage in prayers that are risky.

But how are we to tell the difference? We are to recognize the differing situations by faith, and we are to resign ourselves by faith, and we are to risk by faith. But—we want to know—how can we learn to risk things in prayer? Well, by taking risks there. No, no, we reply. We want to learn how to take risks without actually taking any. It would be lovely to know how to ride a bicycle, and it would be even more lovely to never have a skinned knee.

In the Presence of All the People

God loves it when we give glory to Him. He is not this way because of some kind of megalomania, but rather because He loves what it does in His people when they see, know, and taste His goodness.

One of the things we need to get better at is the practice of boasting in the Lord, bragging on Him when He answered your prayers.

Out to the Limit

Realize that this psalm expresses two things. The first is the extent of his troubles. He was in deep trouble, and in such deep trouble that he spoke hastily about how awful men were. All men are liars. But then God sent our salvation, the man Christ Jesus. God sent a man who was the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).

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